I adore book and publishing related ephemera. So imagine my delight this evening when these two fell from inside a book I was looking at. This is the invitation and the menu from a dinner at the House of Commons to mark 50 years in publishing of Sir Allen Lane, the founder of Penguin Books and with the right to be thought of as one of the most important people in the story of the book in the Twentieth Century (he joined The Bodely Head in 1919 at the age of 17). And if the menu is anything to go by, I imagine a good time was had by all. Presumably these are rather scarce items too!
