Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane, his brothers Richard and John,[2] as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.[3] Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence, bringing high-quality paperback fiction and non-fiction to the mass market.[4] Penguin's success demonstrated that large audiences existed for serious books. Penguin also had a significant impact on public debate in Britain, through its books on British culture, politics, the arts, and science.[5]
Penguin Books is now an imprint of the worldwide Penguin Random House, an emerging conglomerate which was formed in 2013 by the merger with American publisher Random House.[6] Formerly, Penguin Group was wholly owned by British Pearson PLC, the global media company which also owned the Financial Times,[7] but in the new umbrella company it retains only a minority holding of 25% of the stock against Random House owner, German media company Bertelsmann, which controls the majority stake. It is one of the largest English-language publishers, formerly known as the "Big Six", now the "Big Five".