In the mid-1960s, Allen Lane (1902-1970), the founder of Penguin Books, began looking for a way to acquire exciting new books and hold on to their authors. He saw that creating hardbacks alongside his now-famous paperbacks would guarantee a stream of saleable titles. In 1966, with publisher Tony Godwin, he set up the hardback non-fiction imprint Allen Lane the Penguin Press. The first title to be published was Sigfred Taubert's antiquarian tome Biblipola: Pictures and Textes About the Book Trade (co-published with Dr Ernst Hauswell and Co, Hamburg).
Allen Lane the Penguin Press publications soon gained a reputation for their elegant design, modern look, editorial independence and groundbreaking subject matter, with early works including Hunter S. Thompson's cult classic, Hell's Angels; Robin Lane Fox's defining biography, Alexander the Great; Studs Terkel's landmark social history, Division Street: America; Hannah Arendt's powerful treatise, On Violence; and Marshall McLuhan's prophetic bestseller on the power of mass media, The Medium is the Massage.
In February 1984, Penguin Books Chief Executive Officer Peter Mayer announced that the imprint (by then known simply as Allen Lane) would change its name to Viking Press, also the name of Penguin's hardback imprint in the USA. The change was part of a strategy to simplify the Penguin brand. How long this arrangement lasted is unclear.
Today, Allen Lane the Penguin Press (now known simply as Allen Lane) is the leading publisher of popular non-fiction in politics, history, biography, science, philosophy, current affairs, language, and much more.
Among the Australian titles to be published by Allen Lane the Penguin Press (or in later years by Allen Lane) are I Can Jump Puddles (Alan Marshall), A Woman of the Future (David Ireland), I Am Ned Kelly (John Molony), The Long Farewell (D. E. Charlwood), Just Relations (Rodney Hall), and Archimedes and the Seagle (David Ireland).
