Duckworth Books
| Parent company | Duckworth Books Group[1] |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1898 |
| Founder | Gerald Duckworth |
| Country of origin | UK |
| Headquarters location | London |
| Distribution | Bloomsbury Publishing[2] |
| Publication types | Books |
| Official website | www |
Duckworth Books,originallyGerald Duckworth and Company,founded in 1898 byGerald Duckworth,is a British publisher.[3]
History
[edit]
Gerald Duckworth founded the company in 1898, setting up its office at 3Henrietta Street, Covent Garden.Staff includedEdward Garnettas literary advisor and(Herbert) Jonathan Capeas the sales manager.[3]
Until the mid-1920s, the company's notable authors includedHilaire Belloc,Anton Chekhov,W. H. Davies,Elinor Glyn,W. H. Hudson,Henry James,D. H. Lawrence,W. Heath RobinsonandVirginia Woolf(the founder's half-sister). Authors in the next two decades includedJohn Galsworthy,Anthony PowellandEdith Sitwell.[3]
Following Gerald Duckworth's death in 1937, control of the company passed to Mervyn Horder and Patrick Crichton-Smith. The company, heavily in debt after theGreat Depression,suffered the loss of "its entire stock of unbound sheets" as the result of bomb damage during the Second World War. From 1945 until the 1970s the firm published authors suchSimone de Beauvoir,Charlotte MewandEvelyn Waugh.[3]
In 1968, Gerard Duckworth & Co. was purchased by Colin Haycraft and a friend Tim Simon.[4]Haycraft would run the company until his death in 1994. In this period Haycraft was described as a "one man university press" publishing at Duckworth a "body of works on Greek and Roman literature, philosophy and society" whose scholarship and originality "equalled the output of the large university houses". Meanwhile his wife, the writerAlice Thomas Ellis,was Duckworth's fiction editor and was responsible for publishing "Duckworth's best-selling author",Beryl Bainbridge.
The company moved from Henrietta Street to The Old Piano Factory inCamden,North London, on Old Gloucester Street, made famous byAlan Bennettin his bestselling book,The Lady in the Van.[citation needed]
In the period from the 1970s to the 1990s authors published by the company includingJohn Bayley,Beryl Bainbridge,Jeffrey Bernard,Alice Thomas Ellis,Penelope Fitzgerald,Ogden Nash,Dorothy ParkerandOliver Sacks.
In 1998 the company celebrated its centenary[5]and moved its premises toFrith Street,Soho.
In 2003, the company suffered a financial collapse and was put intoreceivership.[6]Its assets were bought byPeter Mayer,a former chief executive ofPenguin Books,who already ownedThe Overlook PressofNew York City.[7]Under new leadership, the company published authors such asMax Brooks,Julia Child,J. J. Connolly,Suzanne Fagence CooperandRay Kurzweil.[3]In 2007 it was reported that Duckworth's trade books were then to be published "under the Duckworth Overlook" imprint while academic books would continue to "carry just the Duckworth name".[8]
In 2010, Duckworth's academic list was acquired byBloomsbury Publishing.[9]
After Mayer's death in 2018, Duckworth was sold to Prelude Books and is now operated under the leadership of Pete Duncan and Matt Casbourne.[10][3]Prelude Books rebranded itself under the name Duckworth Books and as of 2020 the company has been operating from an office inRichmond-upon-Thames[3]with a focus on publishing non-fiction and historical fiction.
Book series
[edit]- Covent Garden Library
- Crown Library
- Great Lives[11]
- Greenback Library
- Hundred Years Series[12]
- The Library of Art
- Masters of Painting
- Modern Plays
- New Reader’s Library[13]
- Noted Irish Lives
- The Popular Library of Art
- Reader’s Library[14]
- The Roadmender Series
- The Student Series
- Studies in Theology
- Two Shillings Net Series
References
[edit]- ^Home - Duckworth Books,duckworthbooks.co.uk. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
- ^"Trade".Retrieved2017-10-23.
- ^abcdefgOur History,duckworthbooks.co.uk. Retrieved 29 November 2020.
- ^"Colin Haycraft: A Passionate Publisher",The Guardian,1 October 1994, p. 32.
- ^Claudia Joseph, "Party takes wing with a huge bill",The Times,16 October 1998, p. 9.
- ^John Ezard,"D-day dawns for Duckworth",The Guardian,25 April 2003. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
- ^Famed publisher rescued,bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
- ^Bookview: May 2007,publishingtrends.com. Retrieved 29 November 2020.
- ^Corporate history,bloomsbury-ir.co.uk. Retrieved 29 November 2020.
- ^"Mayer's Duckworth sold to Prelude for undisclosed sum | The Bookseller".Retrieved2019-07-21.
- ^Great Lives,seriesofseries.com. Retrieved 29 November 2020.
- ^The Hundred Years Series (Gerald Duckworth) - Book Series List,publishinghistory.com. Retrieved 29 November 2020.
- ^New Readers' Library,seriesofseries.com. Retrieved 29 November 2020.
- ^Readers' Library (Duckworth),seriesofseries.com. Retrieved 29 November 2020.
