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
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 mu ...
, 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'' series by
J. K. Rowling
Joanne Rowling ( "rolling"; born 31 July 1965), also known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author and philanthropist. She wrote ''Harry Potter'', a seven-volume children's fantasy series published from 1997 to 2007. The ser ...
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
Doha ( ar, الدوحة, ad-Dawḥa or ''ad-Dōḥa'') is the capital city and main financial hub of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf coast in the east of the country, north of Al Wakrah and south of Al Khor, it is home to most of the cou ...
, 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 Fo ...
. 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 (BQFJ), an
open access,
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 180 ...
(2000)
*
Whitaker's Almanack (2002)
*
T & AD Poyser (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 (2008)
*
Arden Shakespeare
The Arden Shakespeare is a long-running series of scholarly editions of the works of William Shakespeare. It presents fully edited modern-spelling editions of the plays and poems, with lengthy introductions and full commentaries. There have been t ...
(2008)
* Tottel Publishing (2009)
*
Bristol Classical Press (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 o ...
(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
This is a list of largest UK trade book publishers, with some of their principal imprints, ranked by sales value.
List
According to Nielsen BookScan as of 2010 the largest book publishers of the United Kingdom were:
# Penguin Random House ' ...
*
Object Lessons
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