Penguin Books - Pearson Takeover

Pearson Takeover

By the end of the 1960s Penguin was in financial trouble, a number of buy-out proposals were made including that of a consortium of universities or the joint ownership of Penguin by the CUP and OUP, none of which came to anything. Ultimately, the company was bought out by Pearson Longman on 21 August 1970, some six weeks after the death of Allen Lane. A new emphasis on profitability emerged and, with the departure of Facetti in 1972, the defining era of Penguin book design came to an end. Later changes included the disappearance of 'Harmondsworth' as the place of publication: this was replaced by a London office address. From 1937 the headquarters of Penguin Books was at Harmondsworth west of London and so it remained until the 1990s when a merge with Viking involved the head office moving into London (27 Wrights Lane, W8 5TZ).

In the company's tradition of courting controversy, Penguin published Deborah Lipstadt's book Denying the Holocaust which accused David Irving of Holocaust denial. Irving sued Lipstadt and Penguin for libel in 1998 but lost in a widely publicised trial. Other controversial titles published by Penguin include Siné′s Massacre, Spycatcher and The Satanic Verses.

In 2006, Penguin attempted to involve the public in collaboratively writing a novel on a wiki platform. They named this project A Million Penguins. On 7 March 2007, the Penguin Books UK blog announced that the project had come to an end.