After a 30 year slumber Pelican Books has returned.
In its heyday it was an essential ingredient to a well-rounded view of the world. Coming from the mind of Allen Lane, who revolutionized the reading experience with the introduction of Penguin paperbacks, it provided affordable non-fiction to the masses:
Costing no more than a packet of cigarettes, and aimed at the true lay reader, Pelicans combined intellectual authority with clear and accessible prose. As the first British publisher of intelligent non-fiction at a genuinely low price, Pelican became an informal university for generations of Britons. With books on economics and history, art and literature, philosophy and culture, Pelican was, according to the Spectator, ‘a decisive influence on the growth of public understanding of the world.’ Over nearly half a century, the series sold more than 250 million copies, becoming, in Lane’s words, ‘the true everyman’s library for the twentieth century’.
Enter the 21st century and the advent of digital reading and the sleeping Pelican has been reborn and digitized. “In its new incarnation Pelican continues the same mission: to publish truly accessible books from authoritative and award-winning writers on a wide range of essential subjects. Pelicans are for those topics you are interested in, but feel you don’t know enough about, whether it’s architecture or the brain, evolution or Islam.”
Offering all the bells and whistles of electronic reading with a splash of interactivity and quality content this new Pelican is sure to make a big splash.