Katherine Mansfield - The Garden Party
The Albatross Modern Continental Library 22, 1949
Cover Design: Hans Mardersteig
"The proofs of this edition have been read by R.H. Boothroyd, the text is set in monotype garamond and was printed at the Stamperia Valdonega in Verona - MCMXLIX"
Albatross was an English-language reprint series publishing British and American authors in countries other than the British Empire and United States. Their appearance owed much to the Tauchnitz editions from Leipzig, initiated in 1842.
The 'classic' [Penguin] look... was not entirely new; it derived to a degree from the Albatross series of 1932. These featured simple typography designed by Hans Mardersteig, colour coding, an easily memorable bird's name and a recognizable drawing of it used as the logo.
Explanation of the colour scheme:
Red Volumes: Stories of adventure and crime
Blue Volumes: Love stories
Green Volumes: Stories of travel and foreign peoples
Purple Volumes: Biographies and historical novels
Yellow Volumes: Psychological novels, essays, etc.
Grey Volumes: Plays, poetry & collected works
Orange Volumes: Tales and short stories, humorous and satirical works
Tags: albatross vintage paperback
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Aldous Huxley - Antic Hay
Albatross Library 24, 1932
Cover Design: Hans Mardersteig
This edition is composed in Garamond type cut by the Monotype Corporation. The paper is made by the Papier-Fabrik Bautzen. The printing and the binding are the work of Oscar Brandstetter- Abteilung Jakob Hegner - Leipzig
Albatross was an English-language reprint series publishing British and American authors in countries other than the British Empire and United States. Their appearance owed much to the Tauchnitz editions from Leipzig, initiated in 1842.
The 'classic' [Penguin] look,..., was not entirely new; it derived to a degree from the Albatross series of 1932. These featured simple typography designed by Hans Mardersteig, colour coding, an easily memorable bird's name and a recognizable drawing of it used as the logo.
Explanation of the colour scheme:
Red Volumes: Stories of adventure and crime
Blue Volumes: Love stories
Green Volumes: Stories of travel and foreign peoples
Purple Volumes: Biographies and historical novels
Yellow Volumes: Psychological novels, essays, etc.
Grey Volumes: Plays, poetry & collected works
Orange Volumes: Tales and short stories, humorous and satirical works
Tags: albatross vintage paperback modern english literature
© All Rights Reserved
E.M. Forster - A Passage to India
Albatross Library 96, 1947
Cover Design: Hans Mardersteig
This edition is composed in a new version of a French 16th century type and printed and made by Arnoldo Mondadori in Verona.
Albatross was an English-language reprint series publishing British and American authors in countries other than the British Empire and United States. Their appearance owed much to the Tauchnitz editions from Leipzig, initiated in 1842.
The 'classic' [Penguin] look,..., was not entirely new; it derived to a degree from the Albatross series of 1932. These featured simple typography designed by Hans Mardersteig, colour coding, an easily memorable bird's name and a recognizable drawing of it used as the logo.
Explanation of the colour scheme:
Red Volumes: Stories of adventure and crime
Blue Volumes: Love stories
Green Volumes: Stories of travel and foreign peoples
Purple Volumes: Biographies and historical novels
Yellow Volumes: Psychological novels, essays, etc.
Grey Volumes: Plays, poetry & collected works
Orange Volumes: Tales and short stories, humorous and satirical works
Tags: albatross vintage paperback modern english classic
© All Rights Reserved
Robert Graves - Antigua, Penny, Puce
The Albatross Modern Continental Library 335, 1937
Cover Design: Hans Mardersteig
"This edition is composed in Baskerville type cut by the monotype corporation. The paper is made by the Bautzen papermill. The printing and the binding are the work of Oscar Brandstetter Leipzig."
Albatross was an English-language reprint series publishing British and American authors in countries other than the British Empire and United States. Their appearance owed much to the Tauchnitz editions from Leipzig, initiated in 1842.
The 'classic' [Penguin] look,..., was not entirely new; it derived to a degree from the Albatross series of 1932. These featured simple typography designed by Hans Mardersteig, colour coding, an easily memorable bird's name and a recognizable drawing of it used as the logo.
Explanation of the colour scheme:
Red Volumes: Stories of adventure and crime
Blue Volumes: Love stories
Green Volumes: Stories of travel and foreign peoples
Purple Volumes: Biographies and historical novels
Yellow Volumes: Psychological novels, essays, etc.
Grey Volumes: Plays, poetry & collected works
Orange Volumes: Tales and short stories, humorous and satirical works
Tags: albatross vintage paperback
© All Rights Reserved
Michele K. Troy - Strange Bird
The Albatross Press and the Third Reich
Yale University Press, 2017
Cover jacket design adapted from the original Albatross cover design by Hans Mardersteig
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 Holroyd-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, colour-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 Albatross co-founder Kurt Enoch to manage Penguin's American branch.
Tags: yale university press albatross press collecting paperbacks
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