I picked up these little gems from the local Co-op's free charity box of second-hand books. All were published by Penguin in the 1950's. They follow Jan Tschichold's rigorous 1940's restyling for Penguin.
Tschichold was one of the pioneers of the German functionalist 'New Typography' movement in the 1920's. However he later completely revised his view on typography and embrace what he termed, 'New Traditionalism' using a mix of classic serif typefaces in a centred configuration, employing decorative borders and repeated patterned backgrounds, all far removed from the clinical severity of his former work.
So many designers get locked into a particular typographical style, seemingly afraid to ever change, like the ageing pop stars who refuses to ditch their 70's mullet hair styles. Not so for Tschichold, thank goodness, who left us with this perfect, quintessentially English understated style of grace and elegance. I can't imagine them in any other way.