A Night to Remember

Finally, people much closer to me personally deserve a special word of thanks. Mr Ralph Whitney has suggested many useful sources. Mr Harold Daw has contributed important research. Miss Virginia Martin has deciphered and typed reams of scribbled foolscap. My mother has done the kind of painful indexing and cross-checking that only a mother would be willing to do.

W. L., 1956

He just wanted a decent book to read …

Not too much to ask, is it? It was in 1935 when Allen Lane, Managing Director of Bodley Head Publishers, stood on a platform at Exeter railway station looking for something good to read on his journey back to London. His choice was limited to popular magazines and poor-quality paperbacks – the same choice faced every day by the vast majority of readers, few of whom could afford hardbacks. Lanes disappointment and subsequent anger at the range of books generally available led him to found a company – and change the world.

We believed in the existence in this country of a vast reading public for intelligent books at a low price, and staked everything on it

Sir Allen Lane, 1902–1970, founder of Penguin Books

The quality paperback had arrived – and not just in bookshops. Lane was adamant that his Penguins should appear in chain stores and tobacconists, and should cost no more than a packet of cigarettes.

Reading habits (and cigarette prices) have changed since 1935, but Penguin still believes in publishing the best books for everybody to enjoy. We still believe that good design costs no more than bad design, and we still believe that quality books published passionately and responsibly make the world a better place.

So wherever you see the little bird – whether it’s on a piece of prize-winning literary fiction or a celebrity autobiography, political tour de force or historical masterpiece, a serial-killer thriller, reference book, world classic or a piece of pure escapism – you can bet that it represents the very best that the genre has to offer.

Whatever you like to read – trust Penguin.

www.penguin.co.uk

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PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

www.penguin.com

First published by Longmans Green & Co. 1956

Large-format revised and illustrated edition first published by Allen Lane 1976

Published in Penguin Books 1978

Reissued in this edition with a new Foreword and a new Introduction in Penguin Books 2012

Text copyright © Walter Lord, 1956, 1976, 1981, 2012

Foreword copyright © Julian Fellowes, 2012

Introduction copyright © Brian Lavery, 2012

Cover design by wearesuperfantastic.com

All rights reserved

The moral right of the authors has been asserted

Typeset by Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk, Stirlingshire

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN: 978-0-241-96236-7