signet

Ian Ballantine departed Penguin in 1945 to start his next little project (Bantam Books), leaving Kurt Enoch and Victor Weybright in charge of the company. They continued the fights with the home office in England that Ballantine had waged for years: for more controversial titles and racier cover art. In 1948, Enoch & Weybright legally separated the company from Penguin (England), and New American Library was officially formed. Signet was the fiction label, Mentor was for non-fiction and other academic offerings (under the old Penguin system, the non-fiction books were published using the Pelican label). See Mentor.

Thomas L. Bonn, in his history of the company, suggests that Weybright became a sort of literary “Gatekeeper” that controlled the flow of titles, cover art and content. More controversial titles meant having to battle the censors, who still had a stranglehold on U.S. literature in the early 1950’s. (Erskine Caldwell’s God’s Little Acre was the only Signet title ever accused of being obscene in a court case ... but Caldwell defended the book and won.)

By the late 50’s NAL had grown to be the largest paperback house in the country. Their motto: “Good Reading for the Millions.” Of particular interest to us here is the unprecedented quality of the covers. This was more than just illustration. At Signet, cover art was art - real art - and the unstated comparison led the reader to believe that the literature inside could be considered real art as well.

Eventually, Signet cover art would be epitomized by the paintings of James Avati, and it was insinuated by some that if an artist wanted to paint for NAL, he had to copy Avati's style. This was an obvious overgeneralization, but sometimes you have to wonder. Signet often changed cover illustrations over the course of several printings of a book.

Signet "D" series (Double) books sold for 50¢, and the spines were even presented as if there were two normal sized Signet books set side by side. "T" series (Triple) books sold for 75¢. The "S" series was for the 35¢ books, and they may have been slightly wider, or simply pricier due to royalties or other expenses. (Eventually, inflation would push the vast majority of the books into the "S" category.) These were interspersed throughout the Signet run. The printing order was numerical only. For example, Signets 1494, S1495, T1496, S1497 were printed in order.

The Signet "K" series (Key books) were non-fiction and classic literature offerings that for some reason were not delegated to the Mentor label.

The "Signet Classics" series bore their own numbering sequence, and their links are presented at the bottom of this page. Books belonging to the "Signet Science Library," on the other hand, were interspersed in numerical order within the regular Signet run.

Signet, being the largest, was able to lure popular authors away from other paperback houses. Two of particular note were Ian Fleming, who had originally published with Pocket Books under the Perma label, and Al Feldstein's MAD, which had originally started with Ballantine Books.

NOTE: I have received numerous scans of Signet books starting with the prefix "AE." I have recently been informed that the company did not begin using this until 1980, which is after the "cut-off date" for my "Vintage Paperback" website. Sorry.

Signet Spines

Courtesy of Bruno Schmidt

The Signet Database was updated in July 2021