Batsford Books

Last updated

Batsford Books is an independent British book publisher.

Contents

Batsford was founded in 1843 by Bradley Thomas Batsford. [1] For some time it was an imprint of Pavilion Books. Upon the purchase of Pavilion Books by HarperCollins, on 1 December 2021 B. T. Batsford Ltd once again became an independent publishing house, with Pitkin as an imprint. [2] Polly Powell, former owner of Pavilion Books, became the owner of Batsford Books and John Stachiewicz was appointed chairman

A prominent chairman of the firm from 1952 until 1974 was Brian Batsford, known as Brian Cook, who designed many of its dust-jackets. [3] Notable series in past years have included The Face of Britain series, The British Heritage Series, [4] The English Life Series, [5] the Batsford Paperbacks series [6] and Batsford's Half-Guinea Library. [7]

Batsford publishes books in various specialty categories such as applied arts, bridge, chess, horticulture and industrial archaeology. Current publications include Millie Marotta's colouring books which have sold in excess of 5 million copies world-wide. Batsford has co-published books with organisations such as the Twentieth Century Society. [8] Under Pavilion, Pitkin Publishing was bought from The History Press in 2017. [9] Pitkin was founded c.1947 [10] and publishes works on English cathedrals and other places of historic and cultural interest. [11]

Batsford organises the Batsford Prize in conjunction with Cassart. The prize is an annual student award open to national and international undergraduate and postgraduate students of fine and applied art, fashion and illustration. There are five categories for entrants: Fine Art, Applied Arts, Fashion, Illustration and Children's Illustration. [12]

In September 2023, it was announced Batsford had acquired the London-headquartered arts publisher Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers and its subsidiary Scala Arts Publishers Inc., for an undisclosed amount. [13]

Book series

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beacon Press</span> American non-profit book publisher

Beacon Press is an American left-wing non-profit book publisher. Founded in 1854 by the American Unitarian Association, it is currently a department of the Unitarian Universalist Association. It is known for publishing authors such as James Baldwin, Mary Oliver, Martin Luther King Jr., and Viktor Frankl, as well as The Pentagon Papers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hutchinson (publisher)</span> British book and magazine publisher

Hutchinson was a British publishing firm which operated from 1887 until 1985, when it underwent several mergers. It is currently an imprint which is ultimately owned by Bertelsmann, the German publishing conglomerate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chatto & Windus</span> British book publisher

Chatto & Windus is an imprint of Penguin Random House that was formerly an independent book publishing company founded in London in 1855 by John Camden Hotten. Following Hotten's death, the firm would reorganize under the names of his business partner Andrew Chatto and poet William Edward Windus. The company was purchased by Random House in 1987 and is now a sub-imprint of Vintage Books within the Penguin UK division.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Cape</span> English publishing firm (founded 1921)

Jonathan Cape is a London publishing firm founded in 1921 by Herbert Jonathan Cape (1879–1960), who was head of the firm until his death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge</span> UK-based Christian charity

The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) is a UK-based Christian charity. Founded in 1698 by Thomas Bray, it has worked for over 300 years to increase awareness of the Christian faith in the UK and worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">E. P. Dutton</span> Former American book publishing company

E. P. Dutton was an American book publishing company. It was founded as a book retailer in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1852 by Edward Payson Dutton. Since 1986, it has been an imprint of Penguin Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">G. P. Putnam's Sons</span> US book publisher

G. P. Putnam's Sons is an American book publisher based in New York City, New York. Since 1996, it has been an imprint of the Penguin Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hodder & Stoughton</span> British publisher

Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hachette.

Duell, Sloan and Pearce was a publishing company located in New York City. It was founded in 1939 by C. Halliwell Duell, Samuel Sloan and Charles A. Pearce. It initially published general fiction and non-fiction, but not westerns, light romances or children's books. It published works by many prominent authors, including Archibald MacLeish, John O'Hara, Erskine Caldwell Anaïs Nin, Conrad Aiken, Wallace Stegner, E. E. Cummings, Howard Fast, Benjamin Spock, Joseph Jay Deiss and William Bradford Huie. In addition to their literary list, the firm published many works of military history, with a focus on aviation in the war years.

Grafton was a British paperback group name and imprint established in 1983 upon the purchase by William Collins, Sons of Granada Publishing Ltd, a subsidiary of media company Granada Group Ltd, to replace the Granada group name and imprint. It used the publishing company's then editorial offices' street address, 8 Grafton Street, in central London. Other paperback imprints of Granada Publishing at the time included Paladin, later home of the Paladin Poetry Series, Panther and Mayflower. The collaboration with hardback publishers Jonathan Cape, Chatto and Windus and The Bodley Head which in 1976 had resulted in the creation of Triad, and Triad/Panther Books paperbacks, which latter now became Triad/Grafton Books.

Angus & Robertson (A&R) is a major Australian bookseller, publisher and printer. As book publishers, A&R has contributed substantially to the promotion and development of Australian literature. The brand currently exists as an online shop owned by online bookseller Booktopia. The Angus & Robertson imprint is still seen in books published by HarperCollins, a News Corporation company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Hamlyn</span> British publisher (1926–2001)

Paul Hamlyn, Baron Hamlyn, was a German-born British publisher and philanthropist, who established the Paul Hamlyn Foundation in 1987.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The History Press</span> British publishing company

The History Press is a British publishing company specialising in the publication of titles devoted to local and specialist history. It claims to be the United Kingdom's largest independent publisher in this field, publishing approximately 300 books per year and with a backlist of over 12,000 titles.

William Collins, Sons & Co., often referred to as Collins, was a Scottish printing and publishing company founded by a Presbyterian schoolmaster, William Collins, in Glasgow in 1819, in partnership with Charles Chalmers, the younger brother of Thomas Chalmers, the minister of Tron Church in Glasgow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Penguin Random House</span> American multinational conglomerate publishing company

Penguin Random House LLC is an Anglo-American multinational conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, with the merger of Penguin Books and Random House. Penguin Books was originally founded in 1935 and Random House was founded in 1927. It has more than 300 publishing imprints. Along with Simon & Schuster, Hachette, HarperCollins and Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Random House is considered one of the 'Big Five' English language publishers.

Ernest Benn Limited was a British publishing house.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">G. K. Hall & Co.</span> American book publisher

G. K. Hall & Co. is an American book publisher based in Boston. It was founded sometime in the late 1950s by Garrison Kent Hall (1917–1973), who also had been an accountant. The firm initially, in the late 1950s through the 1960s, produced catalogs, in print and microform, of collections of renowned libraries – notably the New York Public Library. In the 1960s, Betty Jensen Hall’s new marketing strategy increased profits markedly and the firm expanded, producing other library references in the sciences, humanities, fine arts, and music. Beginning in 1971, two years after being acquired by ITT, the firm became a leading pioneer of publishing large-print editions of best-selling fiction and non-fiction books. In 1972 it acquired Gregg Press the scholarly reprint company. In 1973 it acquired Twayne Publishers. In 1989 it acquired Sandak, the art slide publisher. In 1990 it acquired Thorndike Press, its main American large print competitor.

Studio Vista was a British publishing company founded in 1961 that specialised in leisure and design topics. In the 1960s, the firm published works by a number of authors who went on to be noted designers.

Sun Books was an Australian publisher of paperback books, founded in Melbourne in 1965 by Geoffrey Dutton, Max Harris and Brian Stonier. Sun's three founders were all former employees of Penguin Australia who, having grown frustrated by the latter's tepid interest in home-grown content, had resigned in order to establish the imprint, envisioned as a publisher of “quality paperbacks for the sophisticated Australian reader”, and a platform for local literary talent. Prior to its acquisition by Macmillan in 1981, Sun had published over 330 titles, of which 187 were first editions.

Brassey's is variously the name of a publisher, an imprint, or a published series of volumes, all mostly associated with military topics, that was in existence in one form or another from 1886 to around 2005.

References

  1. ↑ Rose, Jonathan. "Batsford, Bradley Thomas". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/38976.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ↑ "HarperCollins UK to acquire Pavilion Books as Powell retains two imprints | The Bookseller". www.thebookseller.com. Retrieved 2021-12-24.
  3. ↑ Brian Cook Batsford, briancookbatsford.com. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  4. ↑ The British Heritage Series, briancookbatsford.com. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  5. ↑ The English Life Series, briancookbatsford.com. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  6. ↑ Batsford Paperbacks (B. T. Batsford Ltd.) - Book Series List, publishinghistory.com. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
  7. ↑ Batsford’s Half-Guinea Library, seriesofseries.com. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
  8. ↑ "C20 Books – The Twentieth Century Society". c20society.org.uk. Retrieved 2021-12-24.
  9. ↑ "Catalogues". Pavilion Books. Retrieved 2021-12-24.
  10. ↑ "Pitkin Books". Pavilion Books. Retrieved 2021-02-04.
  11. ↑ Pitkin Books, batsfordbooks.com. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  12. ↑ "Textile Design students shortlisted for The Batsford Prize 2020-21". Norwich University of the Arts. Retrieved 2021-12-24.
  13. ↑ "Batsford acquires arts publisher Scala". The Bookseller. Retrieved 2023-09-05.
  14. ↑ se:Batsford Art and Crafts Books, worldcat.org. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  15. ↑ Games & Popular Culture, batsfordbooks.com. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  16. ↑ The British Cities Series, briancookbatsford.com. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  17. ↑ "Buildings of Europe Series" + Batsford, worldcat.org. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  18. ↑ Discovering Chess Series, worldcat.org. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  19. ↑ "English Life Series" + Batsford, worldcat.org. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  20. ↑ "Everyday Life Series" + Batsford, worldcat.org. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  21. ↑ Everything You Know About..., batsfordbooks.com. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  22. ↑ Galery - Home Front Handbooks, briancookbatsford.com. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  23. ↑ Learn Quickly, batsfordbooks.com. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  24. ↑ Millie Marotta, batsfordbooks.com. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  25. ↑ se:Past-into-present series, worldcat.org. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  26. ↑ The Pilgrims Library, briancookbatsford.com. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  27. ↑ John Larner, Culture and society in Italy, 1290-1420 , London: B. T. Batsford, 1970. Retrieved 5 July 3034.
  28. ↑ "Then and Now" + Batsford, worldcat.org. Retrieved 10 April 2023.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.