Bloomsbury Publishing plc is a British worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. It is a constituent of the
FTSE SmallCap Index
The FTSE SmallCap Index is an index of small market capitalisation companies consisting of the 351st to the 619th largest-listed companies on the London Stock Exchange main market. The index, which is maintained by FTSE Russell, a subsidiary of t ...
. Bloomsbury's head office is located in
Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions.
Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest mus ...
, an area of the
London Borough of Camden. It has a US publishing office located in
New York City, an India publishing office in
New Delhi, an Australia sales office in
Sydney CBD
The Sydney central business district (CBD) is the historical and main commercial centre of Sydney. The CBD is Sydney's city centre, or Sydney City, and the two terms are used interchangeably. Colloquially, the CBD or city centre is often refer ...
and other publishing offices in the UK including in
Oxford. The company's growth over the past two decades is primarily attributable to the ''
Harry Potter
''Harry Potter'' is a series of seven fantasy literature, fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young Magician (fantasy), wizard, Harry Potter (character), Harry Potter, and his friends ...
'' series by
J. K. Rowling and, from 2008, to the development of its academic and professional publishing division.
The Bloomsbury Academic & Professional division won the Bookseller Industry Award for Academic, Educational & Professional Publisher of the Year in both 2013 and 2014.
Divisions
Bloomsbury Publishing group has two separate publishing divisions—the Consumer division and the Non-Consumer division—supported by group functions, namely Sales and Marketing, Book Production, Finance and Technology. Imprints and book lists of publishing businesses acquired by Bloomsbury are assigned to the most relevant publishing division.
History
The company was founded in 1986 by
Nigel Newton
Nigel ( ) is an English masculine given name.
The English ''Nigel'' is commonly found in records dating from the Middle Ages; however, it was not used much before being revived by 19th-century antiquarians. For instance, Walter Scott published ...
, who had previously been employed by other publishing companies. It was floated as a public registered company in 1994, raising £5.5 million, which was used to fund expansion of the company into paperback and children's books. A rights issue of shares in 1998 raised a further £6.1 million, which was used to expand the company, in particular to found a U.S. branch. In 1998, Bloomsbury USA was established. Bloomsbury USA Books for Young Readers was established in 2002, and in 2005, Bloomsbury acquired Walker & Co, a small company dedicated to publishing nonfiction. The Walker brand was discontinued in 2015 and sold to Walker Publishing Company.
In December 2008, Bloomsbury opened a branch in
Doha, Qatar, under joint-partnership with
Qatar Foundation
Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development ( ar, مؤسسة قطر) is a state-led non-profit organization in Qatar, founded in 1995 by then-emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and his second wife Moza bint Nasser. Qatar Founda ...
. The publishing house created, called
Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing Hamad Bin Khalifa University Press (HBKU Press) is a publishing house based in Doha, Qatar. The press was initially managed by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC and was founded as Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing (BQFP) in 2008 until its transition in ...
, worked mainly with English and Arabic literature.
Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Journals Hamad Bin Khalifa University Press (HBKU Press) is a publishing house based in Doha, Qatar. The press was initially managed by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC and was founded as Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing (BQFP) in 2008 until its transition in ...
(BQFJ), an
open access
Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
,
peer reviewed academic publisher, was created in December 2010 as a joint venture with Qatar Foundation. Journal research articles were published through BQFJ's website ''Qscience.com''. The company's partnership with Qatar Foundation ended in December 2015 and all of Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing works were incorporated in Qatari-owned HBKU Press. At the time of BQFP's dissolution it had published over 200 books. BQFJ's works were also incorporated in HBKU Press.
In 2012, Bloomsbury established a publishing office in
India.
Acquisitions and imprints
Among the companies, book lists and imprints that Bloomsbury has acquired are:
* Bloomsbury Academic (1986)
*
A & C Black
A & C Black is a British book publishing company, owned since 2002 by Bloomsbury Publishing. The company is noted for publishing '' Who's Who'' since 1849. It also published popular travel guides and novels.
History
The firm was founded in 18 ...
(2000)
*
Whitaker's Almanack (2002)
*
T & AD Poyser
T. & A. D. Poyser began as a British publisher, founded by Trevor and Anna Poyser in 1973, to specialise in ornithology books. It was located in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, and later in Calton, Staffordshire.
T. & A. D. Poyser often worked in c ...
(2002)
* Thomas Reed Publications (2002)
* Peter Collin Publishing (2002)
* Andrew Brodie Publications (2003)
* Walker Publishing Company (2004)
*
Methuen Drama (2006)
*
Berg Publishers (2008)
*
John Wisden & Co
''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...
(2008)
*
Arden Shakespeare (2008)
* Tottel Publishing (2009)
*
Bristol Classical Press
Bloomsbury Publishing plc is a British worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. It is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index. Bloomsbury's head office is located in Bloomsbury, an area of the London Borough of Camden. It has a ...
(2010)
*
Continuum International Publishing Group (2011)
* Absolute Press (2011)
*
Fairchild Books (2012)
* Applied Visual Arts Publishing (2012)
* Hart Publishing (2013)
*
Osprey Publishing
Osprey Publishing is a British, Oxford-based, publishing company specializing in military history. Predominantly an illustrated publisher, many of their books contain full-colour artwork plates, maps and photographs, and the company produces ov ...
(2014)
*
I. B. Tauris (2018)
*
Oberon Books
Oberon Books is a London-based independent publisher of drama texts and books on theatre. The company publishes around 100 titles per year, many of them plays by new writers. In addition, the list contains a range of titles on theatre studies, act ...
(2019)
*
Zed Books
Zed Books is an independent non-fiction publishing company based in London, UK. It was founded in 1977 under the name Zed Press by Roger van Zwanenberg.
Zed publishes books for an international audience of both general and academic readers, co ...
(2020)
* Red Globe Press (2021)
* Head of Zeus (2021)
*
ABC-CLIO (2021).
See also
*
List of largest UK book publishers
*
Object Lessons Object Lessons is "an essay and book series about the hidden lives of ordinary things". Each of the essays (2,000 words) and the books (25,000 words) investigate a single object through a variety of approaches that often reveal something unexpected ...
References
External links
Bloomsbury HomepageBloomsbury Investor relations websiteBloomsbury Online Library
{{Authority control
*
1986 establishments in the United Kingdom
Book publishing companies based in London
Academic publishing companies
Publishing companies established in 1986
Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange
Multinational publishing companies