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The Man Who Changed the Way We Read
  • Published: 14 October 2025
  • ISBN: 9781405980968
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 496
  • RRP: $24.99
Categories:

The Man Who Changed the Way We Read

The Story of Allen Lane and Penguin Books

Formats & editions
Paperback
14 Oct 2025
EBook
4 May 2006
Audiobook
10 July 2025
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To celebrate our 90th birthday, a reissue of the biography of a phenomenal individual and the story of Penguin Books.

By founding Penguin Books in 1935 and popularizing the paperback, Allen Lane not only changed publishing in Britain – he was also at the forefront of a social and cultural revolution.

In The Man Who Changed the Way We Read, Jeremy Lewis brings this extraordinary era brilliantly to life. Lane’s books gave millions of people access to what had previously been the preserve of a wealthy few; they alerted the public to the threat of Nazi Germany; and Penguin itself became a cherished national institution, much like the BBC and the NHS, whilst at the same time challenging the status quo through the famous Lady Chatterley case.

This is the spellbinding story of how a complex, highly fallible man used his vision to change the world.
  • Published: 14 October 2025
  • ISBN: 9781405980968
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 496
  • RRP: $24.99
Categories:

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About the author

Jeremy Lewis

A former publisher and the deputy editor of the Oldie, Jeremy Lewis has written three volumes of autobiography and biographies of Cyril Connolly, Tobias Smollett and Allen Lane, the founder of Penguin Books. Shades of Greene: One Generation of an English Family, was published by Cape in 2010.

portrait photo of Jeremy Lewis

Also by Jeremy Lewis

David Astor
Shades of Greene
Cyril Connolly
See all

Praise for The Man Who Changed the Way We Read

An invaluable and fascinating account of this country's intellectual and political development

Nick Hornby, Time Out

Both hugely enjoyable to read and surprisingly riveting

Independent on Sunday

Lewis's rakish and racy biography ... tells the story not just of a man, or even a firm, but of a cultural makeover that shaped the world as we know it

Daily Telegraph

Lewis's book is outstanding

London Review of Books