Parent company | Profile Books |
---|---|
Founded | 1986 |
Founder | Pete Ayrton |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Headquarters location | London |
Distribution | The Book Service (UK) Consortium Book Sales & Distribution (USA) |
Publication types | Books |
Official website | serpentstail |
Serpent's Tail is London-based independent publishing firm founded in 1986 by Pete Ayrton. It specialises in publishing work in translation, particularly European crime fiction. In January 2007, it was bought by a British publisher Profile Books.
The firm publishes both fiction and non-fiction books. Boyd Tonkin, writing for The Independent , has described the publisher's list: "from hard-boiled noir to gems in translation and left-field cultural reportage – often defines the meaning of 'cool'." [1]
High Risk Books was an imprint of Serpent's Tail that existed from 1993-1997. It was founded by Ira Silverberg and Amy Scholder and aimed to publish innovative, provocative, and progressive literature (such as Kathy Acker and William S. Burroughs), poetry (including Jayne Cortez), and non-fiction (including the collected journalism of Cookie Mueller). [9]
Kathy Acker was an American experimental novelist, playwright, essayist, and postmodernist writer, known for her idiosyncratic and transgressive writing that dealt with themes such as childhood trauma, sexuality and rebellion. Her writing incorporates pastiche and the cut-up technique, involving cutting-up and scrambling passages and sentences; she also defined her writing as existing in the post-nouveau roman European tradition. In her texts, she combines biographical elements, power, sex and violence.
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.
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.
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.
South End Press was a non-profit book publisher run on a model of participatory economics. It was founded in 1977 in Boston's South End. It published books written by political activists, notably Arundhati Roy, Noam Chomsky, bell hooks, Winona LaDuke, Manning Marable, Ward Churchill, Cherríe Moraga, Andrea Smith, Howard Zinn, Jeremy Brecher and Scott Tucker. South End Press closed in 2014.
Hardboiled fiction is a literary genre that shares some of its characters and settings with crime fiction. The genre's typical protagonist is a detective who battles the violence of organized crime that flourished during Prohibition (1920–1933) and its aftermath, while dealing with a legal system that has become as corrupt as the organized crime itself. Rendered cynical by this cycle of violence, the detectives of hardboiled fiction are often antiheroes. Notable hardboiled detectives include Dick Tracy, Philip Marlowe, Nick Charles, Mike Hammer, Sam Spade, Lew Archer, Slam Bradley, and The Continental Op.
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.
The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (1990–2015) was a British literary award. It was inaugurated by British newspaper The Independent to honour contemporary fiction in translation in the United Kingdom. The award was first launched in 1990 and ran for five years before falling into abeyance. It was revived in 2001 with the financial support of Arts Council England. Beginning in 2011 the administration of the prize was taken over by BookTrust, but retaining the "Independent" in the name. In 2015, the award was disbanded in a "reconfiguration" in which it was merged with the Man Booker International Prize.
Progress Publishers was a Moscow-based Soviet publisher founded in 1931.
Blackie & Son was a publishing house in Glasgow, Scotland, and London, England, from 1809 to 1991.
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.
Te Herenga Waka University Press or THWUP is the book publishing arm of Victoria University of Wellington, located in Wellington, New Zealand. As of 2022, the press had published around 800 books.
Hamlyn is a UK publishing company founded by Paul Hamlyn in 1950 with an initial investment of £350. His desire was to create "fine books with the common touch" which remains the foundation of its commercial success. It is part of the Octopus Publishing Group, now owned by Hachette Livre.
Adrian McKinty is a Northern Irish writer of crime and mystery novels and young adult fiction, best known for his 2020 award-winning thriller, The Chain, and the Sean Duffy novels set in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. He is a winner of the Edgar Award, the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, the Macavity Award, the Ned Kelly Award, the Barry Award, the Audie Award, the Anthony Award and the International Thriller Writers Award. He has been shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière.
High Risk Books was a book publisher, founded in New York City in 1993 as an imprint of Serpent's Tail Press of London. It was started by Ira Silverberg and Amy Scholder who was then an editor at City Lights Books in San Francisco. Its titles were designed by Rex Ray.
Ira Silverberg is an American editor and consultant to writers, artists, publishers, and non-profit arts organizations. He is a member of the adjunct faculty of the Columbia University School of the Arts, MFA Writing Program.
Terence Sellers (1952–2016), also known as Mistress Angel Stern, was a New York-based writer and dominatrix involved in the New York Downtown Arts Scene. Her papers have been collected by New York University's Fales Library Downtown Collection.
Vicki Due Hendricks is an American author of crime fiction, erotica, and a variety of short stories.
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.
Amy Scholder is an American literary editor and documentary filmmaker known for publishing works by marginalized and especially LGBTQ writers, artists, musicians, and activists.
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