Summer 2026
Pocket-money publishing
Noel Carrington: Nothing Need Be Ugly
The Higgins Bedford, Castle Lane, Bedford. Curated by Joe Pearson (Design for Today). Exhibition design by Victoria Partridge. 15 November 2025 – 2 September 2026. Reviewed by Clare Walters
In December 1940, when Britain was in the early throes of the Second World War, publisher and editor Noel Carrington (1895-1989) launched Penguin’s Puffin Picture Books. These small paperbacks, aimed particularly at evacuees, gave wartime children access to beautifully illustrated, colourful books on a wide range of subjects at a pocket-money price.
This absorbing exhibition, curated by Joe Pearson, author of Drawn Direct to the Plate: Noel Carrington and the Puffin Picture Books (Penguin Collectors Society), documents the life and work of this influential publisher, from his early years at Oxford University Press in India, through his time as Books Manager at publishers Country Life, to the launch of Puffin Picture Books and beyond. On display are 120 titles from the Puffin series, plus many other items from across his career.
Carrington was born in Bedford and the start of the exhibition describes his early life. He believed that ‘nothing need be ugly’ ...
Clare Walters, writer and editor, wordlessbooks.com, London
Read the full version in Eye no. 110 vol. 28, 2026
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