Orange-spine Penguin English Library books

Frankly they look very bad in their color scheme to me ;)

Many times i have stayed away from them when i saw another version of the same book.

Im spoiled i dont buy old,damaged copies unless i have no choice. Penguin black classics is enough for me.
 
Connavar said:
Frankly they look very bad in their color scheme to me ;)

Many times i have stayed away from them when i saw another version of the same book..
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I have to admit the use of Gill as typeface would have attracted me even years ago, Anglophile that I was.
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Extollager said:
I could easily understand how one could become a collector of those books. I just have to say (or imagine my dear wife saying): "No! You can't!":)
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I just don't tell her. And when she does notice I only have to point out that I don't drink and I don't smoke and second hand books do have a resale value. And that all the books I bought in the last three months put together cost about the same as the last pair of shoes she bought - the ones that she isn't wearing because she doesn't like them any more. That usually works.
 
JunkMonkey said:
I just don't tell her. And when she does notice I only have to point out that I don't drink and I don't smoke and second hand books do have a resale value. And that all the books I bought in the last three months put together cost about the same as the last pair of shoes she bought - the ones that she isn't wearing because she doesn't like them any more. That usually works.
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I like to point out that I don't drive, don't spend money on sports events, don't ...

..... but that kite just don't fly. :rolleyes:
 
Anyone who's followed this thread should take a look, if possible, at Geoff Dyer's Reading Life column in the 6 Nov. 2011 issue of The New York Times Book Review. The piece is called "The Oldest New Experiences" and deals with the packaging of Penguin classics in the mid-Seventies or so. He notes the presence of John Atkinson Grimshaw's cover art. It's a fun read (although I don't think very highly of the paper in which it appears).
 
Connavar said:
Im spoiled i dont buy old,damaged copies unless i have no choice. Penguin black classics is enough for me.
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Cool. I'ts always good to know you have a few allies. Penguin black classics rule!...:D

Actually to be fair I don't mind the earlier Penguin covers, I just prefer the Penguin Blacks more...in the same way I much prefer the SF Masterwork covers to their Fantasy equivalent.
 
Today, from a friend, orange-spine editions of two Dickens novels, Martin Chuzzlewit and Barnaby Rudge.
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I have Penguin Blacks and Penguin Oranges all around the house -- as well as Penguin Greens for Classic Crime (looking at a copy of Edmund Crispin's The Case of the Gilded Fly).

Plenty of dark green Viragos too, from the 1980s onward.
 
Today arrived the Penguin English Library Selections from The Tatler and The Spectator ... ordering this used book, I hadn't expected it would be in the orange-spine format that I love, but it was:).
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Most of the books that I have in this series are mass market-sized, but this and a selection from Aubrey's Brief Lives is trade paperback size.

I'd expected it to look like this:
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Somehow that's the format I like least of the Penguin series formats of the past 40 years or so, though it's decent.
 
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I'm not sure, but it may well be the orange-spine Penguin English Library edition of William Thackeray's The History of Henry Esmond that Jonah the tramp is carrying as he talks with Commander Dalgliesh in the fifth (of six) episode of this 1991 miniseries of Devices and Desires (about four minutes into the teleplay). That would be a nice touch, since that would not be the new, contemporary Penguin design that I'm pretty sure was in place as of the time the series was filmed; it would be suitable that Jonah had found the book or perhaps bought it for a few pence used. My copy is the 1972 reprint of the 1970 issue. I've checked the text of P. D. James's novel, and it doesn't specify what Jonah was reading. The miniseries wasn't great, with some things shown that might be better left unseen, murky audio and images, and some plot material that didn't seem terribly plausible or well-integrated into the story; but this little passage did quicken my attention.

I propped my copy of Esmond against the screen. In the photo, the color for my book is all wrong, because of the color of light from the overhead bulbs. But from what I could see on the teleplay, the colors were in fact a pretty fair match. One gets only a glimpse of the back cover as the two men amble along, but it looks like it could be right, and one gets a glimpse of the spine, which does appear to be orange. The lines of type on the cover and the number of words per line there appear such that they could match my book. So: I'm fairly sure that Jonah's book is a Penguin English Library edition, and it might well be this particular one.
 
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Extollager said:
I like to point out that I don't drive, don't spend money on sports events, don't ...

..... but that kite just don't fly. :rolleyes:
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You sound like my brother.

It's a wonder he hasn't had to take out a second mortgage, the number of speciality kites he owns.
(They all fly though.)
 
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