The Lutterworth Press

Last updated

The Lutterworth Press
Predecessor Religious Tract Society
Founded1932
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Headquarters locationCambridge, England
Distributionself-distributed (UK)
Casemate Academic (US)
Publication typesBooks
Imprints James Clarke and Co Ltd, Acorn Editions
Official website www.lutterworth.com

The Lutterworth Press, one of the oldest independent British publishing houses, has traded since the late eighteenth century, initially as the Religious Tract Society (RTS). [1] The main areas of publication have been religion and theology, children's books and books for young people (with an emphasis on "improving literature" and books with "moral values"), [1] and general adult non-fiction.

Contents

The religious list, as with the RTS, tended to publish fairly evangelical writers, such as Norman Grubb, [2] but gradually broadened in the second half of the twentieth century.

Well-known general writers first published by Lutterworth include David Attenborough [3] and Patrick Moore. [4] The list specialises in popular history and art history, but also publishes books on a wide range of other subjects.

The children's list, which built on the strength of the Boy's Own Paper and Girl's Own Paper , [1] has included well-known authors such as Enid Blyton, W.E. Johns, Kathleen Fidler and Laura Ingalls Wilder.

The Lutterworth Press was named after the small English town of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, where John Wyclif served as Rector in the fourteenth century, [5] has been used since 1932, and Lutterworth continued most of the then current RTS publications. The Press was originally based in London before expanding its operations to Guildford in Surrey where it operated from until 1983. It has been based in Cambridge, England since 1984. In an period where "most long-established publishers have been absorbed into faceless multinational groups", Lutterworth has maintained its "editorial existence". [1]

Lutterworth was the "first British publishing house to have branches in Africa and Asia" and in the late 19th century and early 20th century it issued "language dictionaries and other works in many indigenous languages". [1]

The book From the Dairyman's Daughter to Worrals of the WAAF: The R.T.S., Lutterworth Press and Children's Literature, edited by Dennis Butts and Pat Garrett, 2006, [6] chronicles the history of the publishing house.

Book series

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lutterworth</span> Town in Leicestershire, England

Lutterworth is an historic market town and civil parish in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England. The town is located in southern Leicestershire, close to the borders with Warwickshire and Northamptonshire. It is located 6.4 miles north of Rugby, Warwickshire and 12 miles south of Leicester.

<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.

The Dairyman's Daughter is an early 19th-century Christian religious booklet of 52 pages, which had a remarkably wide distribution and influence. It was a narrative of the religious experience of Elizabeth Wallbridge, who was the person after whom the book was named.

<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">Religious Tract Society</span> British publisher of Christian literature

The Religious Tract Society was a British evangelical Christian organization founded in 1799 and known for publishing a variety of popular religious and quasi-religious texts in the 19th century. The society engaged in charity as well as commercial enterprise, publishing books and periodicals for profit.

T&T Clark is a British publishing firm which was founded in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1821 and which now exists as an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing.

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

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blackie and Son</span> Publishing house

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">T. Fisher Unwin</span> British publishing company

T. Fisher Unwin was the London publishing house founded by Thomas Fisher Unwin, husband of British Liberal politician Jane Cobden in 1882.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Worrals</span> Fictional character

Flight Officer Joan Worralson, better known as "Worrals", is a fictional character created by W. E. Johns, more famous for his series of books about the airman Biggles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Hunt (literary critic)</span> British scholar (born 1945)

Peter Hunt is a British scholar who is Professor Emeritus in English and children's literature at Cardiff University, UK.

The following is a chronological list of television series and individual programmes in which Sir David Attenborough is credited as a writer, presenter, narrator, producer, interviewee, etc. In a career spanning eight decades, Attenborough's name has become synonymous with the natural history programmes produced by the BBC Natural History Unit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederick A. Stokes</span> American publisher

Frederick Abbott Stokes was an American publisher, founder and long-time head of the eponymous Frederick A. Stokes Company.

Ernest Benn Limited was a British publishing house.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Adams (educationist)</span> UK academic, educator, and science fiction author

Sir John Adams was a Scottish education scholar who was the first Principal of UCL Institute of Education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethel Nokes</span> English author

Ethel Louise Nokes (1883–1976) was a British children's writer who produced 21 novels from the 1930s to the 1950s – several with equestrian themes, plus a trilogy of girls' school stories. Many of her works have evangelical sub-texts.

<i>Sunday at Home</i>

Sunday at Home was a weekly magazine published in London by the Religious Tract Society beginning in 1854. It was one of the most successful examples of the "Sunday reading" genre of periodicals: inexpensive magazines intended to provide wholesome religious entertainment for families to read on Sundays, especially as a substitute for "pernicious" secular penny weeklies such as The London Journal or The Family Herald.

Hammond's Hard Lines is a children's novel written by Scottish educationist John Adams, with illustrations by Harold Copping. In the tale—one of only two school stories by Kuppord—a British schoolboy gets wishes from a mysterious figure that do not go well in his or the institution's favour. It was published to positive reviews by Blackie & Son, first in 1894 and again with updated text in 1957.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 The Lutterworth Press, jstor.org. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  2. ↑ Biographies - Norman P. Grubb, normangrubb.com. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  3. ↑ Attenborough, David (22 March 2010). "The Zoo Quest Expeditions". Lutterworth.com. Retrieved 21 October 2015.
  4. ↑ Moore, Patrick (22 March 2010). "Guide to Comets". Lutterworth.com. Retrieved 21 October 2015.
  5. ↑ The Victoria History of Leicestershire: Lutterworth, uolpress.co.uk. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  6. ↑ From the Dairyman's Daughter to Worrals of the WAAF, lutterworth.com. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  7. ↑ Antique Pocket Guides, lutterworth.com. Retrieved 30 August 2024.
  8. ↑ Century of ... Series, lutterworth.com. Retrieved 30 August 2024.
  9. ↑ Bull Patrol, worldcat.org. Retrieved 30 August 2024.
  10. ↑ se:Junior Wren Books, worldcat.org. Retrieved 30 August 2024.
  11. ↑ Roland Allen Library, lutterworth.com. Retrieved 30 August 2024.

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.