February 2016 | Rebecca Rego Barry

Penguin Scribe

PCS2015B.jpgRecently, the Penguin Collectors Society published Penguin Scribe, a slim volume of collected articles by Steve Hare (1950-2015), whose contributions to the scholarship of Penguin Books is "unequalled." Hare had been a member of the PCS since 1980, editor of its journal, The Penguin Collector, from 1993-2000, and author of several books, including Penguin Portrait: Allen Lane and the Penguin Editors 1935-1970 (1995) and Penguin By Illustrators (2009)--we posted an excerpt of the latter upon publication.

Hare contributed to Fine Books severeal times over the years, and two of those articles can now be found between the covers of Penguin Scribe: his 2004 piece, "The Mystery of the Drowning Porpoises," a look at the short-lived Porpoise Books imprint, and his 2005 piece, "Compliments of the Season," about Allen Lane's limited edition Christmas keepsake books. (Hare also penned this guest blog post about the Penguin Classics anniversary edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover for us in 2010.)

Published by the Penguin Collectors Society in an edition of 500, Penguin Scribe also contains lively and informative Penguin-themed articles from various magazines and journals, including Book and Magazine Collector, Creative Review, and The Journal of Publishing Culture.

                                                                                                                                                     Image via PCS.