Batsford Books is an independent British book publisher. Batsford was founded in 1843 by Bradley Thomas Batsford. For some time it was an imprint of Pavilion Books. Upon the purchase of Pavilion Books by

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News ...

, on 1 December 2021 B. T. Batsford Ltd once again became an independent publishing house, with Pitkin as an imprint. Polly Powell, former owner of Pavilion Books, became the owner of Batsford Books and John Stachiewicz was appointed chairman A prominent chairman of the firm from 1952 until 1974 was Brian Batsford, known as Brian Cook, who designed many of its dust-jackets. Notable series in past years have included ''The Face of Britain'' series, the English Heritage series, the Batsford Paperbacks and Batsford's Half-Guinea Library. Batsford publishes books in various specialty categories such as applied arts, bridge,

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, horticulture and industrial archaeology. Current publications include Millie Marotta's colouring books which have sold in excess of 5 million copies world-wide. Batsford has co-published books with organisations such as the

Twentieth Century Society The Twentieth Century Society (C20) is a British charity which campaigns for the preservation of architectural heritage from 1914 onwards. The society's interests embrace buildings and artefacts that characterise 20th-century Britain. It is for ...

. Under Pavilion, Pitkin Publishing was bought from

The History Press The History Press is a British publishing company specialising in the publication of titles devoted to local and specialist history. It claims to be the United Kingdom's largest independent publisher in this field, publishing approximately 300 ...

in 2017. Pitkin was founded c.1947 and publishes works on English cathedrals and other places of historic and cultural interest. Batsford organises the Batsford Prize in conjunction with Cassart. The prize is an annual student award open to national and international undergraduate and postgraduate students of fine and applied art, fashion and illustration. There are five categories for entrants: Fine Art, Applied Arts, Fashion, Illustration and Children's Illustration.

References

{{reflist Publishing companies of the United Kingdom 1843 establishments in England