[1] Literary critics see books in this series as important members of the Western canon, though many titles are translated or of non-Western origin; indeed, the series for decades since its creation included only translations, until it eventually incorporated the Penguin English Library imprint in 1986.

[3][4] As editor, Radice argued for the place of scholarship in popular editions, and modified the earlier Penguin convention of the plain text, adding line references, bibliographies, maps, explanatory notes and indexes.

The early minimalist designs were modernised by Italian art director Germano Facetti, who joined Penguin in 1961.

Prior to 2002, the text page typography of each book in the Classics series had been overseen by a team of in-house designers; this department was drastically reduced in 2003 as part of the production cost reductions.

Penguin Classics collaborated with Bill Amberg in 2008 in the design of six books (A Room with a View, Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Big Sleep, The Great Gatsby, Brideshead Revisited, and The Picture of Dorian Gray).

The Penguin Collectors' Society have published two bibliographies of the early, pre-ISBN (referred to as 'L') editions: firstly in 1994, with an update in 2008.

A feature of the World's Biggest Bookstore in Toronto, Ontario, from its inception in the 1970s, and for years thereafter, was that it stocked all of the Penguin Classics titles.

"[22] Penguin Classics sold well during the 2019-2021 coronavirus pandemic when citizens in many countries, forced into lockdown as a preventive measure, found solace in books.