Heinemann (publisher)

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Heinemann
Founded1890; 134 years ago (1890)
SuccessorPearson Education (UK education)
Hutchinson Heinemann (UK trade)
Macmillan Education (ELT)
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (US education)
HarperCollins (UK children's)
Capstone Publishers (school libraries)
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Headquarters location
Official website

William Heinemann Ltd., with the imprint Heinemann, was a London-based publisher founded in 1890 by William Heinemann. Their first published book, 1890's The Bondman, was a huge success in the United Kingdom and launched the company. He was joined in 1893 by Sydney Pawling. Heinemann died in 1920 and Pawling sold the company to Doubleday, having worked with them in the past to publish their works in the United States. Pawling died in 1922 and new management took over. Doubleday sold his interest in 1933.

Through the 1920s, the company was well known for publishing works by famous authors that had previously been published as serials. Among these were works by H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, W. Somerset Maugham, George Moore, Max Beerbohm and Henry James, among others. This attracted new authors to publish their first editions with the company, including Graham Greene, Edward Upward, J. B. Priestley and Vita Sackville-West. Throughout, the company was also known for its classics and international catalogue, and in the post-WWII era, the company focused on educational materials.

Through the 1950s, the company was slowly taken over by

Reed International in 1987, who then sold their entire trade-oriented publishing assets to Random House in 1997. Heinemann ELT (English Language Teaching) division was sold to Macmillan Education in 1998.[1] Eventually, the rest of international division was sold to Pearson Education and the US division to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
in 2007. Most of these successors (with exception of Macmillan Education) continue to use the imprint.

History

Scribners' Great Educators series under the title Heinemann's Great Educators series, but did not include credits for the original American editor, Nicholas Murray Butler,[9] an omission for which they were criticized.[8]

Between 1895 and 1897, Heinemann was the publisher of

Dostoyevsky and 5000 copies of Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution by Peter Kropotkin.[11] In 1912, the company began publishing the Loeb Classical Library series, publications of ancient works with the Greek or Latin text on the left-hand page, and a literal translation on the right hand page.[12] The series has been called "the most significant" of the parallel-text translations.[12] Since 1934, it has been co-published with Harvard University.[12][13]

On Heinemann's death in 1920 a majority stake was purchased by U.S. publisher Doubleday,[6] with Theodore Byard, who had previously been a professional singer, joining to lead the offices.[6]

A subsidiary company was established in The Hague in 1953; originally intended to distribute works in English to continental Europe, it eventually began to directly print Heinemann's books as well.[4]

The company was later acquired by conglomerate

Thomas Tilling in 1961. When the impending takeover became known, Graham Greene (who had been with Heinemann since his first work in 1929)[14] led a number of Heinemann authors who protested by taking their works to other publishers, including The Bodley Head, of which Greene was a director.[14][15]

Houghton Mifflin purchased the American operations a few months later. Pearson sold the school library publisher Heinemann-Raintree to Capstone Publishers in 2008.[18] Egmont Group sold its UK book division to HarperCollins in 2020.[19] Penguin Random House merged William Heinemann with Hutchinson to form Hutchinson Heinemann in 2021.[20]

In 1957, Heinemann Educational Books (HEB) created the

African Writers Series, spearheaded by Alan Hill and West Africa specialist Van Milne, to focus on publishing the writers of Africa such as Chinua Achebe, who was the first advisory editor of the series. Heinemann was awarded the 1992 Worldaware Award for Social Progress.[21] The series was relaunched by Pearson in 2011.[22][23]

Inspired by the African Writers Series, Leon Comber launched the Writing in Asia Series in 1966 from Singapore. Two Austin Coates books in the series, Myself a Mandarin and City of Broken Promises, became bestsellers, but the series, after publishing more than 70 titles, was to fold in 1984 when Heinemann Asia was taken over by a parent group of publishers.[24]

In 1970, the Caribbean Writers Series—modelled on the African Writers Series—was launched by James Currey and others at HEB to republish work by major Caribbean writers.[25][26]

References

  1. ^ a b The Macmillan Story (PDF). Macmillan Publishers. 2017. p. 35.
  2. ^ a b The Publishers' Circular and Booksellers' Record of British and Foreign Literature. Sampson Low, Marston & Company. 1895. pp. 49–.
  3. ^ Trübner's American and Oriental Literary Record. Trübner & Company. 1884. pp. 48–.
  4. ^
    ISBN 9781405192781
    . Retrieved 1 January 2013.
  5. ISBN 9783161457418
    . Retrieved 1 January 2013.
  6. ^
    ISBN 9780877458982
    . Retrieved 1 January 2013.
  7. ^
    ISBN 9789042022980
    . Retrieved 1 January 2013.
  8. ^ a b The Bookman. Dodd, Mead and Company. 1895. pp. 214–.
  9. ^ Thomas Davidson, Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1892, title page. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
  10. ISBN 9780313296925
    . Retrieved 1 January 2013.
  11. ISBN 9780700717477
    . Retrieved 1 January 2013.
  12. ^
    ISBN 9780199247844
    . Retrieved 1 January 2013.
  13. ISBN 9780674380806
    . Retrieved 1 January 2013.
  14. ^
    ISBN 9780312314781
    . Retrieved 1 January 2013.
  15. ISBN 9780307369369
    . Retrieved 1 January 2013.
  16. ISBN 978-1-4831-0372-3
    .
  17. ^ "PW: Egmont Buys Reed Children's Books".
  18. ^ "About us".
  19. ^ Milliot, Jim. "HC to Buy Egmont Book Groups in the U.K. Poland, and Germany". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 2023-12-22.
  20. ^ https://www.thebookseller.com/news/ahmed-and-conford-join-hutchinson-and-william-heinemann-merge-while-arthur-departs-1239360?utm_source=pocket_saves
  21. ^ "Worldaware Business Awards 1992 - Williamson Tea Award for Social Progress". Worldaware.org.uk. Retrieved 2013-08-28.
  22. ^ "Pearson revives African Writers Series, calls for submissions" Archived 2016-09-21 at the Wayback Machine, Naija Stories, 4 August 2011.
  23. ^ Nicholas Norbrook, "Publishing Africa Writers Series celebrates 50 years", The Africa Report, 29 February 2012.
  24. ISBN 9622092829
    . Retrieved 10 April 2016.
  25. ^ "Heinemann Caribbean Writers Series" Archived 2020-03-05 at the Wayback Machine, Oxford Index.
  26. ^ Caribbean Writers Series Archived 2020-08-01 at the Wayback Machine, Heinemann.

Further reading

External links

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