The Bodley Head

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Bodley Head has been used as an imprint of Random House since 1987.

Originally John Lane and Elkin Mathews — The Bodley Head was a partnership set up in 1887 by John Lane (1854–1925) and Elkin Mathews, to trade in antiquarian books in London. It took its name from a head of Sir Thomas Bodley, the eponymist of the Bodleian Library in Oxford, above the shop door. After a few years they starting publishing, initially of poets from the Rhymer's Club group, and notoriously of The Yellow Book, edited by Henry Harland. Mathews withdrew from the partnership in 1894. In 1921, the firm became a private limited company.

In the twentieth century it published some mainstream popular authors, such as Arnold Bennett and Agatha Christie, but ran into financial difficulties. It continued after 1936 backed by a consortium of Allen & Unwin, Jonathan Cape, and J. M. Dent. Allen Lane, John Lane's nephew who had inherited control, left to found Penguin Books. Bought in 1957 by Ansbacher & Co., the imprint was still important in the 1970s when it was drawn into the Jonathan Cape/Chatto and Windus group.

Contents

The Book of Bodley Head Verse (1926)

Edited by J. B. Priestley. Poets included were:

Lascelles AbercrombieA. E.T. B. AldrichKenneth AshleyMaurice BaringAubrey BeardsleyHenry C. BeechingArthur Christopher BensonArchibald Allan BowmanMary BrothertonEmile CammaertsEthel CliffordErnest Hartley ColeridgeStephen ColeridgeFrancis CouttsLord Curzon Of KedlestonOlive CustanceJohn DavidsonLord de TableyLord Alfred DouglasErnest DowsonHelen Parry EdenLeolyn Louise EverettEugene FieldDarrell FiggisNorman GaleRichard GarnettH. W. GarrodStephen GwynnJohn HayAlfred HayesF. R. HigginsKatherine Tynan HinksonEdmond HolmesNora HopperFord Madox HuefferE. Pauline JohnsonHerbert JonesFrank KendonRichard Le GallienneArthur E. J. LeggeR. C. LehmannWinifred LucasE. A. MackintoshAlice MeynellBernard MiallRosa NewmarchStephen PhillipsMarjorie L. C. PickthallVictor PlarrDollie RadfordDorothy Una RatcliffeErnest RhysLady Margaret SackvilleVita Sackville-WestSir Owen SeamanLeonard ShoobridgeDora SigersonJohn StillArthur StringerJohn B. TabbFrederick TennysonFrancis ThompsonIris TreeEmile VerhaerenI. Henry WallisRosamund Marriott WatsonSir William WatsonTheodore Watts-DuntonMargaret Woods

See also

Bibliography

  • Stetz, Margaret; Lasmer, Mark Samuels (1990). England in the 1890s: Literary Publishing at the Bodley Head. Georgetown Univ Press. ISBN 0878405097.

External link