An early advertisement for the Pelicans included a manifesto: "Fewer people are content simply to work at a routine job all day and turn to the cinema, cheap novels and dance music for all their recreation. They want to use their brains on something different from their ordinary job, but not to embark on a hobby which is merely a way of escape."

Pelican offered readers a university in their own sitting-rooms. "A man who may be poor in money," wrote Lane, "is not necessarily poor in intellectual qualities.

"I wanted to make the kind of book which, when the vicar comes to tea, you don't push under the cushion. You are rather more inclined to put it on the table to show what sort of person you are." This ambition drew comparisons with that other great educator of the Forties and Fifties: the BBC.

Lane insisted the books sold for sixpence because he knew that the average man when comparing the cost of cigarettes and beer with that of a new book would calculate that he could get more for his money with a smoke and a pint. Once books were cheaper than these temporary pleasures, Lane found an avid reading public.

The company received more than 500 requests from readers for new titles every week: some for reissues of out-of-print favourites, others for entirely new books covering some pet topic. Lane took on the challenge.

In their early days, Penguin and Pelican had only republished  existing books but in the late Thirties they began commissioning. Lane assembled an advisory panel of left-wing editors which included V. K. Krishna Menon, an ascetic vegetarian educated at Madras University and the LSE, and two keen though not fanatical socialists, Lance Beales and W. E. Williams, both also of the LSE. They signed contracts with authors over gin (preferably) or sherry (loathed by the publishers but then the chosen drink of university lecturers). George Bernard Shaw also had an advisory role.

 A survey by Mass Observation in the Forties found that Penguin readers were five times more likely to vote Labour than non-Penguin readers. The inclusion of the left-wing economist Ha-Joon Chang in the new Pelican list is entirely in keeping with its original political stance.

Lane gave his editors strict instructions: "I don't want any of the grand old men. I want the historians who are going to be the grand old men in 30 years' time." He made a point of paying very little — a few pounds for each edition of 30,000 copies — but insisted that if the books were any good, the young authors would get academic posts for their efforts.

Some of the Pelican contributors required chivvying along. When Professor H.D.F. Kitto of Bristol University failed to deliver his manuscript for The Greeks on time, the Penguin editor Alan Glover wrote suggesting — only partly tongue-in-cheek — that the next time the professor was in London, he should visit the Penguin offices to take his pick from their assortment of "eminently marriageable" young women with excellent typing skills. Kitto managed without, though the manuscript missed its deadline.

Lane had a dishonourable habit of accepting ideas from anyone — and then commissioning someone else to write the book. Sometimes, however, he was prepared to take a punt. When 17-year-old schoolboy Kenneth Mason wrote to Penguin in September 1939 proposing an anthology of animal poetry, Lane said yes. The book, divided into insects, reptiles, birds, fish and mammals, was published when Kenneth was 18 and sold 75,000 copies.

Another unexpected success was Peter Heaton's Pelican book on sailing, published in June 1949. Allen Lane had his own boat called — what else? — The Penguin, and commissioned the book largely to satisfy his own interests. He was delighted when it sold 350,000 copies.