Parent company | Orion Publishing Group |
---|---|
Founded | 1949 [1] |
Founder | George Weidenfeld and Nigel Nicolson |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Headquarters location | London |
Publication types | Books |
Nonfiction topics | History, biography, celebrity, fiction, illustrated books. |
Fiction genres |
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Official website | orionbooks |
Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd (established 1949), often shortened to W&N or Weidenfeld, is a British publisher of fiction and reference books. It has been a division of the French-owned Orion Publishing Group since 1991.
George Weidenfeld and Nigel Nicolson founded Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 1949 with a reception at Brown's Hotel, London. [1] [2] Among many other significant books, it published Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita (1959) and Nicolson's Portrait of a Marriage (1973), a frank biography of his mother Vita Sackville-West and father Harold Nicolson. In its early years Weidenfeld also published nonfiction works by Isaiah Berlin, Hugh Trevor-Roper, and Rose Macaulay, and novels by Mary McCarthy and Saul Bellow. Later it published titles by world leaders and historians, along with contemporary fiction and glossy illustrated books. [3] [4] Weidenfeld & Nicolson acquired the publisher Arthur Baker Ltd in 1959, and ran it as an imprint into the 1990s. [5]
Weidenfeld was one of Orion's first acquisitions after the group's founding in 1991, and formed the core of its offerings. At that time Weidenfeld imprints included Phoenix, its own much earlier establishment; and J. M. Dent, acquired in 1988 along with its Everyman series. Orion was acquired in turn by Hachette Livre in 1998. [6] The hardcover rights to Everyman Library were sold in 1991, and survive as a Random House property; paperbacks of Everyman Classics continued under Orion. In January 2002, Cassell imprints, including the Cassell Reference and Cassell Military were joined with the Weidenfeld imprints to form a new division under the name of Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [7]
Late in 2013, W&N published the British edition (and Hachette subsidiary Little, Brown the American edition) of I Am Malala , the memoir of Pakistani-born teenager Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb. Yousafzai is a female education activist, and the Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2014. [8] [9]
Adrian Keith Goldsworthy is a British historian and novelist who specialises in ancient Roman history.
Everyman's Library is a series of reprints of classic literature, primarily from the Western canon. It is currently published in hardback by Random House. It was originally an imprint of J. M. Dent, who continue to publish Everyman Paperbacks.
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.
Victor Gollancz Ltd was a major British book publishing house of the twentieth century and continues to publish science fiction and fantasy titles as an imprint of Orion Publishing Group.
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.
Grosset & Dunlap is a New York City-based publishing house founded in 1898.
Orion Publishing Group Ltd. is a UK-based book publisher. It was founded in 1991 and acquired Weidenfeld & Nicolson the following year. The group has published numerous bestselling books by notable authors including Ian Rankin, Michael Connelly, Nemir Kirdar and Quentin Tarantino.
Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hachette.
Joseph Malaby Dent was a British book publisher who produced the Everyman's Library series.
Hamish Hamilton Limited was a British book publishing house, founded in 1931 eponymously by the half-Scot half-American Jamie Hamilton. Jamie Hamilton was often referred to as Hamish Hamilton.
Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet is a biography of Muhammad by the British religion writer and lecturer Karen Armstrong, published by Gollancz in 1991.
Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emily Dickinson's poetry and Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. Since 2006 Little, Brown and Company is a division of the Hachette Book Group.
The New English Library was a United Kingdom book publishing company, which became an imprint of Hodder Headline.
Brockhampton Press was a British publishing company, based in Leicester.
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.
Cassell & Co is a British book publishing house, founded in 1848 by John Cassell (1817–1865), which became in the 1890s an international publishing group company.
I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban is an autobiographical book by Malala Yousafzai, co-written with Christina Lamb. It was published on 8 October 2013, by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in the UK and Little, Brown and Company in the US.
John Higgs is an English writer, novelist, journalist and cultural historian. The work of Higgs has been published in the form of novels, biographies and works of cultural history.
We Are Displaced: My Journey and Stories from Refugee Girls Around the World is a 2019 book by Malala Yousafzai. The book was published by Little, Brown and Company in the US and Weidenfeld & Nicolson in the UK. The book follows Yousafzai's own experience being displaced in Pakistan and later forced to move to England, and tells stories from nine other displaced people around the world. The book received positive critical reception and reached the top 10 in The New York Times' bestseller list under the "Young Adult Hardcover" section.