Conway Publishing, formerly Conway Maritime Press, is an imprint of

Bloomsbury Publishing 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 U ...

. It is best known for its publications dealing with nautical subjects.

History

Conway Maritime Press was founded in 1972 as an independent publisher. Its origins lay in catering for a specialised readership, publishing quarterly journals such as ''Model Shipwright'' and ''Warship'', which would subsequently evolve into the popular annuals still existent today. These, along with the long-running '' Anatomy of the Ship'' series, published in conjunction with the

Naval Institute Press The United States Naval Institute (USNI) is a private non-profit military association that offers independent, nonpartisan forums for debate of national security issues. In addition to publishing magazines and books, the Naval Institute holds se ...

in the United States, have become stalwarts of the Conway catalogue. Over its history, it has built an extensive catalogue of books specialising in maritime heritage, ship design and construction, and naval military history, from authoritative figures such as

Brian Lavery Brian Lavery (born 18 July 1945), is a British naval historian, author, and Curator Emeritus at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, England. Biography Lavery was born in Scotland and brought up in Dumbarton.< ...

, 'one of the best naval historians in Britain, if not the world,' according to ''BBC History Magazine''. ''Nautical Magazine'' wrote, of Richard Endsor's ''Restoration Warship'', 'From the dust cover into the book and right the way through it, this is a magnificent publication with a tremendous amount of detail.'

Conway Publishing

In 2005

Anova Books 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 ...

bought Conway Maritime Press. Around this time the publisher was renamed Conway Publishing. Whilst still committed to producing specialist maritime books, Conway broadened their catalogue to incorporate general, military and aviation history, exploration, as well as railway and scale modelling (with

Hornby Hornby may refer to: Places In England * Hornby, Lancashire * Hornby, Hambleton, village in North Yorkshire * Hornby, Richmondshire, village in North Yorkshire Elsewhere * Hornby, Ontario, community in the town of Halton Hills, Ontario, Canad ...

and

Airfix Airfix is a British brand and former manufacturing company which produced injection-moulded plastic scale model kits. In the U.K., the name 'Airfix' is synonymous with plastic models of this type, often simply referred to as "an airfix kit" even ...

), amongst other related topics. In recent years, Conway has found success with several television series tie-ins. In line with the current heritage culture espoused by television shows such as BBC's ''Who Do You Think You Are?'' and coordinating with several recent international anniversaries, Conway released a series of popular nostalgic reproduction wartime pocket-books ranging from officers' manuals, the Spitfire, to the Home Guard. Conway has also produced the books to accompany ''

James May's Toy Stories ''James May's Toy Stories'' is a UK documentary television series created and presented by James May, and produced by Plum Pictures for the BBC. The programme focused on bringing some of the most notable toys conceived in the past into the mode ...

'' and the

Dan Snow Daniel Robert Snow (born 3 December 1978) is a British popular historian and television presenter. Early life and education Born in Westminster, London Dan Snow is the youngest son of Peter Snow, BBC television journalist, and Canadian Ann Mac ...

-presented ''Empire of the Seas'', both aired on the BBC. The latter book, written by Brian Lavery, would become a No. 2 ''Sunday Times Bestseller''. In April 2010, Conway attained the book rights to

Bruce Parry Bruce Parry (born 17 March 1969) is an English documentarian, indigenous rights advocate, author, explorer, trek leader and former Royal Marines commando officer. He employs an ethnographic style and a form of participant observation for his d ...

's Arctic adventure, broadcast on BBC2 later in the year. In September 2014

bought Conway from Anova to join its existing

Adlard Coles Nautical Adlard Coles Nautical is a nautical publisher, with over 300 books in print. The company publishes books on topics of interest to sailors and motorboaters and also ‘landlubbers’ with an interest in the sea. Their list includes almanacs, cruis ...

imprint. As of 2018, ''Warship'' is published by Bloomsbury's

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 ...

imprint.

Bibliography

A selection of works:

Annuals and series

* ''Shipwright'' (formerly ''Model Shipwright'') * ''Warship'' * ''Anatomy of the Ship'' * ''Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships'' (4 volumes covering from 1860 to 1995)

Television accompaniments

* ''

'', James May (2009) * ''Empire of the Seas'', Brian Lavery (2009) * ''Arctic'', Bruce Parry (2011)

Featured works

* ''Face to Face: Polar Portraits'', Huw Lewis-Jones (2009) * ''The Restoration Warship'', Richard Endsor (2009) * ''Hitler's Army'', David Stone (2009) * ''The Voyage of the Beagle'', James Taylor (2008) * ''The Marine Art of Geoff Hunt'', Geoff Hunt (2004) * ''The Royal Yacht Britannia: The Official History'', Richard Johnstone-Bryden (2003) * ''Nelson's Navy'', Brian Lavery (1989)

Pocket books

* ''The Spitfire Pocket Manual'', compiled and introduced by Martin Robson (2010) * ''The Secret Agent's Pocket Manual: 1939-1945'', Stephen Bull (2009) * ''Not Enough Room To Swing a Cat: Naval Slang and its Everyday Usage'', Martin Robson (2008) * ''The Royal Navy Officer's Pocket-Book, 1944'', edited by Brian Lavery (2007)

Authors

A list of Conway authors (in alphabetical order): * John Blake * John Bowen * Philip Dawson * Richard Endsor * Peter Goodwin * Jean Hood *

Geoff Hunt Geoffrey Brian Hunt, (born 11 March 1947), is a retired Australian Squash (sport), squash player who is widely considered to be one of the greatest squash players in history. He was ranked the World No.1 squash player from 1975 to 1980. He ...

* Richard Johnstone-Bryden *

Andrew Lambert Andrew Lambert (born 31 December 1956) is a British naval historian, who since 2001 has been the Laughton Professor of Naval History in the Department of War Studies, King's College London. Academic career After completing his doctoral resear ...

* James Lees *

Huw Lewis-Jones Huw Lewis-Jones (born 2 May 1980) is a British historian, editor, broadcaster and art director. Formerly a historian and Curator of Art at the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, Lewis-Jones left Cambridge in June 2010 to p ...

James May James Daniel May (born 16 January 1963) is an English television presenter and journalist. He is best known as a co-presenter of the motoring programme '' Top Gear'' alongside Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond from 2003 until 2015. He also ...

Antony Preston Antony Preston (26 February 1938 – 25 December 2004) was an England, English naval history, naval historian and editor, specialising in the area of 19th and 20th-century naval history and warship design. Life Antony Preston was born in 19 ...

* Martin Robson Robert C. Sinclair * David Stone *

James Taylor James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A six-time Grammy Award winner, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, havi ...

References

{{reflist Book publishing companies of the United Kingdom Maritime magazines Publishing companies established in 1972