William Heinemann Ltd., with the imprint Heinemann, was a
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
publisher founded in 1890 by
William Heinemann
William Henry Heinemann (18 May 1863 – 5 October 1920) was an English publisher of Jewish descent and the founder of the Heinemann publishing house in London.
Early life
On 18 May 1863, Heinemann was born in Surbiton, Surrey, England. Heine ...
. Their first published book, 1890's ''The Bondman'', was a huge success in the United Kingdom and launched the company. He was joined in 1893 by Sydney Pawling. Heinemann died in 1920 and Pawling sold the company to Doubleday, having worked with them in the past to publish their works in the United States. Pawling died in 1922 and new management took over. Doubleday sold his interest in 1933.
Through the 1920s, the company was well known for publishing works by famous authors that had previously been published as serials. Among these were works by
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work.
...
J.B. Priestley
John Boynton Priestley (; 13 September 1894 – 14 August 1984) was an English novelist, playwright, screenwriter, broadcaster and social commentator.
His Yorkshire background is reflected in much of his fiction, notably in ''The Good Compa ...
and Vita Sackville-West. Throughout, the company was also known for its classics and international catalogue, and in the post-WWII era, the company focused on educational materials.
Through the 1950s, the company was slowly taken over by Tilling Group's investment arm. In 1953 they opened offices in The Hague for sales in continental Europe, and in 1978 they opened a separate company in
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Portsmouth is a city in Rockingham County, New Hampshire, United States. At the 2020 census it had a population of 21,956. A historic seaport and popular summer tourist destination on the Piscataqua River bordering the state of Maine, Portsmou ...
to sell their educational works in the US market. When Tilling was purchased by BTR plc in 1983, BTR sold off all their non-industrial assets; Heinemann was sold to Octopus Publishing Group. Octopus merged with Reed International in 1987, who then sold their entire trade-oriented publishing assets to Penguin Group in 1997. The UK educational side was sold to
Pearson Education
Pearson Education is a British-owned education publishing and assessment service to schools and corporations, as well for students directly. Pearson owns educational media brands including Addison–Wesley, Peachpit, Prentice Hall, eCollege, ...
and the US division to
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (; HMH) is an American publisher of textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults. The company is based in the Financial Dist ...
. All of these continue to use the imprint.
History
William Heinemann
William Henry Heinemann (18 May 1863 – 5 October 1920) was an English publisher of Jewish descent and the founder of the Heinemann publishing house in London.
Early life
On 18 May 1863, Heinemann was born in Surbiton, Surrey, England. Heine ...
began working in the publishing industry under Nicolas Trübner, who was a major publisher of what was called Oriental scholarship. When, two years after Trübner's death, his company was taken over by the firm of Kegan Paul, Heinemann left and founded William Heinemann Ltd in
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist si ...
,
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, in 1890. The first title published was Hall Caine's '' The Bondman'', which was a "stunning success", selling more than 450,000 copies. The company also released a number of works translated into English under the branding of "Heinemann's International Library", edited by Edmund Gosse. In 1893, Sydney Pawling became a partner. They became known for publishing the works of Sarah Grand. The company published the British version of
Scribners
Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner's or Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing American authors including Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Marjorie Kinnan Rawli ...
' ''Great Education Series'' under the title ''Heinemann's Great Education Series'', but did not include credits for the original American editor, Nicholas Murray Butler, an omission for which they were criticized.
Between 1895 and 1897, Heinemann was the publisher of William Ernest Henley's periodical ''
New Review
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator ...
''. In the late 1890s, Heinemann and the American publisher
Frank Doubleday
Frank Nelson Doubleday (January 8, 1862 – January 30, 1934), known to friends and family as “Effendi” (phonetic "F.N.D."), founded the Doubleday & McClure Company in 1897, which later operated under other names. Starting work at the age o ...
financially supported
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and short story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in t ...
during his initial attempt at writing what eventually became ''
The Rescue ''The Rescue'' may refer to:
Art
* ''The Rescue'' (painting), an 1855 painting by John Everett Millais
* ''The Rescue'' (statue), a marble sculpture group (1837–50) by Horatio Greenough
Film and television
* " Chapter 16: The Rescue", 202 ...
'', and Heinemann was the British publisher for Conrad's ''
The Nigger of the 'Narcissus'
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' in 1897. One of the company's businesses at that time was to sell English books to a Japan that was beginning to be interested in items of Western culture. Heinemann sold to the Japanese bookstore Maruzen translations of the works of Dostoyevsky and 5000 copies of '' Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution'' by Peter Kropotkin. In 1912, the company began publishing the
Loeb Classical Library
The Loeb Classical Library (LCL; named after James Loeb; , ) is a series of books originally published by Heinemann in London, but is currently published by Harvard University Press. The library contains important works of ancient Greek and L ...
series, publications of ancient works with the Greek or Latin text on the left-hand page, and a literal translation on the right hand page. The series has been called "the most significant" of the parallel-text translations. Since 1934, it has been co-published with Harvard University.
On Heinemann's death in 1920 a majority stake was purchased by U.S. publisher Doubleday, with
Theodore Byard
Theodore may refer to:
Places
* Theodore, Alabama, United States
* Theodore, Australian Capital Territory
* Theodore, Queensland, a town in the Shire of Banana, Australia
* Theodore, Saskatchewan, Canada
* Theodore Reservoir, a lake in Saskatche ...
, who had previously been a professional singer, joining to lead the offices.
A subsidiary company was established in The Hague in 1953; originally intended to distribute works in English to continental Europe, it eventually began to directly print Heinemann's books as well.
The company was later acquired by conglomerate Thomas Tilling in 1961. When the impending takeover became known, Graham Greene (who had been with Heinemann since his first work in 1929) led a number of Heinemann authors who protested by taking their works to other publishers, including The Bodley Head, of which Greene was a director.
BTR BTR may refer to:
Companies
* BTR Aerospace Group
* BTR plc, formerly BTR Industries, one of the predecessor companies of Invensys plc
* British Thomson-Houston (former name BTR), a British engineering and heavy industrial company
Media, music, ...
bought Thomas Tilling in 1983, and were not interested in its publishing division, so Heinemann was put on the block. Heinemann was purchased by the Octopus Publishing Group in 1985, and shortly afterwards sold the sprawling Heinemann HQ in rural Kingswood, Surrey for development; Octopus was purchased by Reed International (now Reed Elsevier) in 1987. Heinemann Professional Publishing was merged with
Butterworths
LexisNexis is a part of the RELX corporation that sells data analytics products and various databases that are accessed through online portals, including portals for computer-assisted legal research (CALR), newspaper search, and consumer inform ...
Scientific in 1990 to form Butterworth-Heinemann. Random House bought Heinemann's trade publishing (now named William Heinemann) in 1997.
Egmont Group
The Egmont Group (formerly The Gutenberghus Group) is a Danish media corporation founded and rooted in Copenhagen, Denmark. The business area of Egmont has traditionally been magazine publishing but has over the years evolved to comprise mass me ...
bought Heinemann's children's publishing in 1998. Heinemann's educational unit became part of
Harcourt Education
Harcourt () was an American publishing firm with a long history of publishing fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. The company was last based in San Diego, California, with editorial/sales/marketing/rights offices in New York City an ...
when Reed Elsevier purchased the company in 2001. Pearson purchased the UK, South African, Australian and New Zealand arms of Harcourt Education in May 2007, while Houghton Mifflin purchased the American operations a few months later.
In 1957, Heinemann Educational Books (HEB) created the
African Writers Series
The African Writers Series (AWS) is a collection of books written by African novelists, poets and politicians. Published by Heinemann (publisher), Heinemann, 359 books appeared in the series between 1962 and 2003.
The series has provided an int ...
, spearheaded by Alan Hill and West Africa specialist
Van Milne
A van is a type of road vehicle used for transporting goods or people. Depending on the type of van, it can be bigger or smaller than a pickup truck and SUV, and bigger than a common car. There is some varying in the scope of the word across t ...
, to focus on publishing the writers of Africa such as Chinua Achebe, who was the first advisory editor of the series. Heinemann was awarded the 1992 Worldaware Award for Social Progress. The series was relaunched by Pearson in 2011.
Inspired by the African Writers Series,
Leon Comber
Leonard Francis Comber (20 September 1921 – 11 May 2023) was a British military and police officer, and later book publisher, operating in British India, Malaya, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia. He was also an editor and author of books relat ...
launched the
Writing in Asia Series Writing in Asia Series was a series of books of Asian writing published from 1966 to 1996 by Heinemann Educational Books (Asia) Ltd (often referred to as Heinemann Asia), a subsidiary of Heinemann, London. Initiated and mainly edited by Leon Comber ...
in 1966 from Singapore. Two
Austin Coates
Austin Coates (1922–1997) was a British civil servant, writer and traveller. He was the son of noted English composer Eric Coates.
Austin Coates wrote extensively on topics related to the Asia-Pacific region, particularly Hong Kong and Macau. ...
books in the series, ''Myself a Mandarin'' and ''City of Broken Promises'', became bestsellers, but the series, after publishing more than 70 titles, was to fold in 1984 when Heinemann Asia was taken over by a parent group of publishers.
In 1970, the Caribbean Writers Series—modelled on the African Writers Series—was launched by James Currey and others at HEB to republish work by major Caribbean writers.Caribbean Writers Series , Heinemann.