Founded in 1935 and celebrating its 80th anniversary this year, Penguin Books is renowned for its original range of paperback classics. Just a glimpse of those orange/white jackets and you know you’re looking at a Penguin. But one thing that never achieved the ubiquity of the stylish books was the shelf specifically created to hold them.
Designed in the late 1930s by Egon Rees and the innovative British furniture manufacturer Isokon, the Donkey Bookcase was a peculiar thing of beauty. Sporting modernist, Bauhaus influences, its contours were the perfect fit for the new affordable paperbacks. However, its time was short lived as production stopped with the outbreak of war and only around 100 originals were ever made.
Named ‘the Donkey’ because of its four legs and twin shelf ‘saddle bags’, the original design was updated in 1963 – the Donkey 2 becoming a more rigid looking beast. Now licensed by the revived Isokon Plus, the Penguin Donkey and Penguin Donkey 2 remain in production today.
