In November 1937, Penguin inaugurated a new series of short, polemical books under the rubric of "Penguin Specials" with the publication of Edgar Mowrer's "Germany Puts the Clock Back". Their purpose was to offer in-depth analysis of current affairs that would counter the perceived bias of the newspapers in addition to being the company's response to the popularity of Gollancz's Left Book Club. Whereas the Left Book Club was avowedly pro-Soviet, Penguin and Lane expressed no political preference as their editorial policy, though the widespread belief was that the series was left-leaning since the editor was the communist John Lehmann and its authors were, with a few exceptions, men of the left. Speed of publication and delivery (a turnaround of weeks rather than months) were essential to the topicality and therefore success of the Specials, Genevieve Tabouis's anti-appeasement tract "Blackmail or War" sold over 200,000 copies for example. However even this immediacy did not prevent them being overtaken by events: Shiela Grant Duff's "Europe and the Czechs" only made it onto the bookstands on the day of the Munich agreement, but nevertheless went on to be a bestseller. Thirty-five Penguin Specials were published before the outbreak of war, including two novels Hašek's "Good Soldier Schweik" and Bottome's "The Mortal Storm"; they collectively made a significant contribution to the public debate of the time, with many of the more controversial titles being the subject of leading articles in the press.