Allen Lane

Sir Allen Lane (born Allen Lane Williams; 21 September 1902 – 7 July 1970) was a British publisher who together with his brothers Richard and John founded Penguin Books, bringing high-quality paperback fiction and non-fiction to the mass market.

Early life and family

Allen Lane Williams was born in Bristol to Camilla (née Lane) and Samuel Williams, and studied at Bristol Grammar School. In 1919 he joined the publishing company Bodley Head as an apprentice to his uncle and founder of the company John Lane. In the process, he and the rest of his family changed their surname to Lane to retain the childless John Lane's company as a family firm. Lane married Lettice Lucy Orr on 28 June 1941 and had three daughters: Clare, Christine, and Anna. He was knighted in 1962.

Career as a publisher

Penguin Books

Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and Allen's brothers, Richard and John, although Allen was the dominant figure in the company. John died in service in 1942 and Richard later sold his share to Allen before the company went public in 1961 as a line of publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large audiences existed for serious books. Penguin also had a significant impact on public debate in Britain, through its books on politics, the arts, and science.

Penguin Books is now an imprint of the worldwide Penguin Random House, an emerging conglomerate which was formed in 2013 by the merger of the two publishers. Formerly, Penguin Group was wholly owned by Pearson PLC, the global media company which also owns the Financial Times, but it now retains only a minority holding of 47% of the stock against Random House owner Bertelsmann who controls the majority stake. It is one of the largest English-language publishers, formerly known as the "Big 6", now known as the "Big Five".

Allen Lane (SEPTA station)

Allen Lane Station is a SEPTA Regional Rail station at 200 West Allens Lane in the Mount Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. The station stands at the intersection of Allens Lane and Cresheim Road. The station building was built circa 1880, according to the Philadelphia Architects and Buildings project. Like many in Philadelphia, it retains much of its Victorian/Edwardian appearance. The High Point Cafe is in the station building.

The station is in zone 2 on the Chestnut Hill West Line, on former Pennsylvania Railroad tracks, and is 10.1 track miles from Suburban Station. In fiscal 2012, this station saw 307 boardings on an average weekday.

The name: "Allen" vs "Allen’s" vs "Allens"

Allen Lane station got its name from the adjoining street, Allens Lane, which was named for William Allen, a prominent man of colonial-era Pennsylvania. His estate, Mount Airy (from which the surrounding Mount Airy neighborhood got its name), was at the top of the hill where Allens Lane meets Germantown Avenue. (The site is now the campus of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia). Since at least the 19th century, there has been variation in the lane's name between "Allen", "Allen’s", and "Allens". Today, through maps and signage, the names have reached a level of written codification that leaves the lane's name written consistently as "Allens" and the station's name written consistently as "Allen". Colloquially, the Allen/Allen’s/Allens variation persists in local speech, such as when train conductors sometimes announce the stop with the genitive inflection. The non-genitive variation that became the codified station name may have been reinforced by a timetable printer's error—the Pennsylvania Railroad's timetables were printed by the firm of Allen, Lane & Scott.