Pelican Books of the 1960’s

Pelican Books’ best selling book of all time is ‘Aircraft Recognition’ by R.A Saville-Sneath: a best-seller that only reinforced Pelican’s position as an educational, informative wing of Penguin Books.

Having first appeared in 1937 with ‘The Intelligent woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism’ by George Bernard Shaw, various academics were bought in as advisors on the Pelican brand, but like so many organisations overrun with top-heavy management and the like, Pelican Books sadly ran out of steam. This happened in 1984, but over those forty seven years, Pelican published thousands of titles – most of which have come to be defined by their exquisitely designed series of books covers. Some of which we’ve featured here.

But there is a happy ending to this story, as as of April 2014, the imprint was relaunched, with the first five titles appearing in May.