Penguin Books

Penguins and Pelicans slowly began to sell. In 1941, Ballantine began importing KING PENGUINS and PENGUIN HANSARD BOOKS as well. King Penguins, advertised as "the ideal gift", were deluxe Penguins with hard covers and color illustrations throughout; they sold for 50 cents. The Hansard series ran from August, 1940 until September, 1942, and featured books about the progress of the war; there weresix Hansards altogeteher, beginning with From Chamberlain to Churchill.

Allen Lane, the man behind British Penguins, visited New York in 1941 and was not pleased with Ballantine's results. At a cocktailparty given by U.S. publishers in his honour, Lane spoke with one of the founders of the Albatross Modern Continental Library, Kurt Enoch, who had come to America to escape the Nazi's. Soon after, Lane hired Enoch and made him vice-president of Penguin Books, Inc.

.For Penguin war meant an immediate and enormous increasein the demand for modern novels and books of political exposition. Unfortunately, the war also meant that the paper used to print these books in England became increasingly worseand, tragically,taht many shipments never made it across the Atlantic to America, as the vessels carrying them fell victim to submarine attacks.
Ian Ballantine was forced to switch hats, from importer to publisher.
The first step was to close a deal with the Infantry Journal and the Military Service Publishing Company. The agreement: Penguin would supply the words, Infantry Journal would provide the paper and the military would purchase the lion's share of the print runs. The result: Penguin began to specialize in war books.

The first titles( The Case for the Federal Union, Warships at Work, New Ways of War, Russia and Aircraft Recognition) had already appeared as British Penguins between 1939 and 1941 and only needed to be reprinted, but the first original American Penguin Specials (What's That Plane?, New Soldier's Handbook and How he Jap Army Fights) soon followed. These INFANTRY JOURNAL _ PENGUIN BOOKS, printed in a somewhat smaller format than the British Penguin Specials, with an orange support color and an illustration on the cover, first appeared in March, 1942.
The regular American Penguins, which also began to appear in March of 1942, also had illustrated covers.