The story is that in 1935, Bodley Head director Allen Lane was on his way home from visiting Agatha Christie and he wanted something to read on the train “and was so disappointed at what he found that he decided to fill the yawning gap by providing good quality fiction at an attractive price.” He began searching for a symbol that was “dignified but flippant.” According to a story in The Huddersfield Daily Examiner, “It was his secretary Joan Coles who suggested a penguin and another employee Edward Young went to London Zoo to do the sketches. Penguin Books was born and the paperback revolution was under way.”