Albatross Books

Albatross Books

Albatross Books was a German publishing house based in Hamburg that produced the first modern mass market paperback books.

Albatross was founded in 1932 by John Holyrod-Reece, Max Wegner and Kurt Enoch. The name was chosen because "Albatross' is the same word in many European languages. Based on the example of Tauchnitz, a Leipzig publishing firm that had been producing inexpensive and paperbound English-language reprints for a continental market, Albatross set about to streamline and modernize the paperback format.

Produced in a new standardized size (181 x 111 mm) that approximated an esthetically pleasing ratio called the Golden Mean, using new sans-serif fonts developed by Stanley Morison among others, color-coding its offerings by genre (green for travel, orange for fiction, etc.), and prominently featuring an albatross as a logo, the series was so successful that Albatross soon purchased Tauchnitz, giving itself an instant 100-year heritage.

The oncoming war brought the Albatross experiment to an end. Allen Lane adopted the look-and-feel of Albatross editions closely, copying most of its innovations, for the first Penguin Books. Lane later hired co-founder Kurt Enoch to manage Penguin's American branch.

External links

* [http://paperbarn.www1.50megs.com/Paperbacks/msg6.htm The Third Paperback Revolution] - By Hyde Park Books of Boise, Idaho.


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Albatross (disambiguation) — Albatross is a type of seabird.The word albatross is also frequently employed to mean long term impediment; burden; curse , ( see Albatross (metaphor)). Such use is an allusion to Samuel Taylor Coleridge s poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner… …   Wikipedia

  • Albatross (1920 schooner) — Albatross, originally named Albatros, later Alk, was a sailing ship built as a schooner at the state shipyard in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in 1920, to serve as a pilot boat in the North Sea.The Albatross spent two decades working the North Sea… …   Wikipedia

  • Albatross Foundation USA — The Albatross Foundation USA ( Fundación Ecológica Albatros ) is a non profit, community based organization, which was initiated and is led by residents of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno in San Cristóbal Island, the administrative capital of the… …   Wikipedia

  • Pocket Books — is a division of Simon Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books. Pocket produced the first mass market, pocket sized paperback books in America in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing industry. The German Albatross Books had… …   Wikipedia

  • Laysan Albatross — Conservation status Near Threatened ( …   Wikipedia

  • Gossamer Albatross — Infobox Aircraft name = Gossamer Albatross caption = The Gossamer Albatross II at Dryden Flight Research Center in 1980 type = experimental aircraft national origin = United States manufacturer = AeroVironment designer = Paul MacCready first… …   Wikipedia

  • Sooty Albatross — Stuffed specimen at the Natural History Museum, Vienna Conservation status …   Wikipedia

  • HMAS Albatross (air station) — Infobox Airport name = NAS Nowra nativename = nativename a = nativename r = image width = caption = IATA = NOA ICAO = YSNW type = Military owner = operator = RAN city served = location = Nowra, New South Wales elevation f = 400 elevation m = 131… …   Wikipedia

  • The Albatross — is a 1971 novella written by Susan Hill. It won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1972. [cite news| last =Freeman| first =Hadley| coauthors =| title =Cotswold chameleon| work =| pages =| language =| publisher =The Guardian| date =2003 10 18| url… …   Wikipedia

  • Rowland Croucher — (born 5 December 1937) is an Australian pastor, counsellor and author.Brought up in the Open Brethren in Sydney, [ [http://rowlandcroucher.blogspot.com/2007/05/3 some childhood memories.html Some childhood memories] Rowland Croucher s blog]… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”