A new small-scale exhibition at the National Library of Scotland charts how reading evolved from a niche luxury into a mass-market reality.
The exhibition tracks the paperback’s journey from the launch of Penguin Books in 1935 to the present day.
Paperback Revolutions will run until October 24th.
Books for everyone
The exhibition explores how the paperback democratised literature by making books both affordable and portable, the ideal companion for the daily commute. Visitors can browse an array of vivid vintage covers, including classic early Penguin editions celebrated for their distinctive minimalist style and colour-coded genres, such as green for crime fiction. Though often thought of as a fleeting, less permanent form of publishing, paperbacks often last.
The way they show their age, faded covers, tattered spines, slightly crumpled pages, gives them a tactile charm that hardbacks rarely possess, and for many visitors these covers will stir memories of volumes first encountered on a parent’s bookshelf or in a library.
Lady Chatterley and the limits of decency
The exhibition also revisits the 1960 Lady Chatterley’s Lover obscenity trial, one of the defining cultural controversies of 20th-century Britain. On display is the first complete, unexpurgated UK edition of D.H. Lawrence’s novel. The trial turned on whether the book’s descriptive passages were too immoral for public consumption, and a number of literary figures stepped forward in its defence, most notably the pioneering social theorist Richard Hoggart, who argued that the novel’s literary merit was beyond question and that it was not written to titillate.
That defence has since served to protect many other books that challenge conventional moral orthodoxies. The exibition also includes a copy of The Trial of Lady Chatterley by C. H. Rolph, a historical record that includes the complete court transcripts and an introduction outlining the cultural and legal background of the case.
Big ideas in small packages
The exhibition is also attentive to broader social currents, tracing the impact of the expansion of higher education, which sharply increased demand for academic texts, and connecting that shift to the rise of serious documentary work. Among the items on display is a yellowing paperback copy of John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, the book that accompanied his landmark television series and became one of the best-selling works on art ever published. Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch is another title featured, a reminder of how the paperback has carried ideas that changed minds.
Edinburgh’s missing chapter
The exhibition makes no mention of Edinburgh’s own place in this story. The city was home to the UK’s first bookshop dedicated primarily to paperbacks: The Paperback Bookshop, established by the cultural impresario Jim Haynes on Charles Street near Bristo Square, where it ran from 1959 to 1967.
The street was later demolished and the site eventually became part of the University of Edinburgh’s Informatics building, but the shop’s cultural legacy was considerable.
Its basement served as the original performance space for the early incarnation of what would become the Traverse Theatre. In winter 1960, in a scene captured in a well-known photograph by Alan Daiches, Haynes sold a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover to a local Salvation Army volunteer, who carried it outside with a pair of tongs and burned it in protest. The photos features on the cover of a scholarly book The Scottish Sixties. It was moment that said as much about the power of the humble paperback as anything inside the exhibition itself.
Worth the Visit
Practical touches make the visit worthwhile. A quiet corner offers a selection of paperbacks to sit and read, a welcome pause from the bustle of a part of the city that sees heavy tourist footfall. Younger visitors can try designing the cover of their own imaginary paperback. On the opening day alone, the results were already showing considerable flair.
