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Routledge ( ) is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing
academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...
books, journals and online resources in the fields of the
humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...
, behavioural science,
education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...
, law, and
social science Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the ...
. The company publishes approximately 1,800 journals and 5,000 new books each year and their backlist encompasses over 140,000 titles. Routledge is claimed to be the largest global academic publisher within humanities and social sciences. In 1998, Routledge became a subdivision and imprint of its former rival, Taylor & Francis Group (T&F), as a result of a £90-million acquisition deal from Cinven, a venture capital group which had purchased it two years previously for £25 million. Following the merger of Informa and T&F in 2004, Routledge became a publishing unit and major imprint within the Informa "academic publishing" division. Routledge is headquartered in the main T&F office in Milton Park, Abingdon,
Oxfordshire Oxfordshire ( ; abbreviated ''Oxon'') is a ceremonial county in South East England. The county is bordered by Northamptonshire and Warwickshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the east, Berkshire to the south, and Wiltshire and Glouceste ...
and also operates from T&F offices globally including in
Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
,
Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
,
New Delhi New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the Government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Parliament ...
,
Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...
, and
Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...
.


History

The firm originated in 1836, when the London bookseller George Routledge published an unsuccessful guidebook, ''The Beauties of Gilsland'', with his brother-in-law W. H. (William Henry) Warne as assistant. In 1848, the pair entered the booming market for selling inexpensive imprints of works of fiction to rail travellers, in the style of the German Tauchnitz family, which became known as the "Railway Library". The venture was a success as railway usage grew, and it eventually led to Routledge, along with W H Warne's brother Frederick Warne, to found the company, George Routledge & Co. in 1851. The following year in 1852, the company gained lucrative business through selling reprints of ''
Uncle Tom's Cabin ''Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly'' is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two Volume (bibliography), volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans ...
'', (in the
public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...
in the UK) which in turn enabled it to pay author Edward Bulwer-Lytton £20,000 for a 10-year lease allowing sole rights to print all 35 of his works including 19 of his novels to be sold cheaply as part of their "Railway Library" series. The company was restyled in 1858 as Routledge, Warne & Routledge when George Routledge's son, Robert Warne Routledge, entered the partnership. Frederick Warne eventually left the company after the death of his brother W. H. Warne in May 1859 (died aged 37). Gaining rights to some titles, he founded Frederick Warne & Co. in 1865, which became known for its Beatrix Potter books. In July 1865, George Routledge's son Edmund Routledge became a partner, and the firm became George Routledge & Sons. By 1899, the company was running close to
bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the deb ...
. Following a successful restructuring in 1902 by scientist Sir William Crookes, banker Arthur Ellis Franklin, William Swan Sonnenschein as managing director, and others, however, it was able to recover and began to acquire and merge with other publishing companies including J. C. Nimmo Ltd. in 1903. In 1912, the company took over the management of Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., the descendant of companies founded by Charles Kegan Paul, Alexander Chenevix Trench, Nicholas Trübner, and George Redway. These early 20th-century acquisitions brought with them lists of notable scholarly titles, and from 1912 onward, the company became increasingly concentrated in the academic and scholarly publishing business under the imprint "Kegan Paul Trench Trubner", as well as reference, fiction and mysticism. In 1947, George Routledge and Sons finally merged with Kegan Paul Trench Trubner (the umlaut had been quietly dropped in the
First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
) under the name of Routledge & Kegan Paul. Using C. K. Ogden and later Karl Mannheim as advisers the company was soon particularly known for its titles in
philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
,
psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
and the
social sciences Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of society, societies and the Social relation, relationships among members within those societies. The term was former ...
. In 1985, Routledge & Kegan Paul joined with Associated Book Publishers (ABP), which was later acquired by International Thomson in 1987. Under Thomson's ownership, Routledge's name and operations were retained, with the additions of backlists from Methuen, Tavistock Publications, Croom Helm and Unwin Hyman. In 1996, a management buyout financed by the European
private equity Private equity (PE) is stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public; instead it is offered to specialized investment funds and limited partnerships that take an active role in the management and structuring of the co ...
firm Cinven saw Routledge operating as an independent company once again. In 1997, Cinven acquired journals publisher Carfax and book publisher Spon. In 1998, Cinven and Routledge's directors accepted a deal for Routledge's acquisition by Taylor & Francis Group (T&F), with the Routledge name being retained as an imprint and subdivision. In 2004, T&F became a division within Informa plc after a merger. Routledge continues as a primary publishing unit and imprint within Informa's 'academic publishing' division, publishing academic
humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...
and
social science Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the ...
books, journals, reference works and digital products. Routledge has grown considerably as a result of organic growth and acquisitions of other publishing companies and other publishers' titles by its parent company.
Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in the United Kingdom that publishes books and academic journals. Its parts include Taylor & Francis, CRC Press, Routledge, F1000 (publisher), F1000 Research and Dovepress. It i ...
Humanities and social sciences titles acquired by T&F from other publishers are rebranded under the Routledge imprint. Routledge is a signatory of the SDG Publishers Compact, and has taken steps to support the achievement of the
Sustainable Development Goals The ''2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development'', adopted by all United Nations (UN) members in 2015, created 17 world Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The aim of these global goals is "peace and prosperity for people and the planet" – wh ...
(SDGs). These include achieving CarbonNeutral publication certification for their print books and journals, under the Natural Capital Partners' CarbonNeutral Protocol.


People

The English publisher Fredric Warburg was a commissioning editor at Routledge during the early 20th century. Novelist Nina Stibbe, author of '' Love, Nina'', worked at the company as a commissioning editor in the 1990s.
Cultural studies Cultural studies is an academic field that explores the dynamics of contemporary culture (including the politics of popular culture) and its social and historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers investigate how cultural practices rel ...
editor William Germano served as vice-president and publishing director for two decades before becoming dean of the humanities at Cooper Union.


Authors

Routledge has published works from Adorno, Bohm, Butler, Derrida, Einstein, Foucault, Freud,
Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American former politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He previously served as ...
, Hayek, Hoppe, Jung, Levi-Strauss, McLuhan, Malinowski, Marcuse, Popper, Johan Rockström, Russell, Sartre, and Wittgenstein. The republished works of some of these authors have appeared as part of the Routledge Classics and Routledge Great Minds series. Competitors to the series are Verso Books' Radical Thinkers, Penguin Classics, and Oxford World's Classics.


Publications

Routledge has been criticised for a pricing structure which "will limit readership to the privileged few", as opposed to options for
open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...
offered by DOAJ, Unpaywall, and DOAB.


Reference works

Taylor and Francis closed down the Routledge print encyclopaedia division in 2006. Some of its publications were: * '' Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', by Edward Craig (1998), in 10 volumes, but now online. * '' Encyclopedia of Ethics'', by Lawrence C. Becker and Charlotte B. Becker (2002), in three volumes.
Reference work A reference work is a document, such as a Academic publishing#Scholarly paper, paper, book or periodical literature, periodical (or their electronic publishing, electronic equivalents), to which one can refer for information. The information ...
s by Europa Publications, published by Routledge: * '' Europa World Year Book'' * '' International Who's Who'' * ''Europa World of Learning'' Many of Routledge's
reference work A reference work is a document, such as a Academic publishing#Scholarly paper, paper, book or periodical literature, periodical (or their electronic publishing, electronic equivalents), to which one can refer for information. The information ...
s are published in print and electronic formats as Routledge Handbooks and have their own dedicated website: Routledge Handbooks Online. The company also publishes several online encyclopedias and collections of digital content such as ''Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', ''Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism'', Routledge Performance Archive, and South Asia Archive. ''Routledge Worlds'' series consisted of 66 books as of July 2023, which the publisher described as "magisterial surveys of key historical epochs". Included in the series are ''The Sikh World'', ''The Pentecostal World'', published in 2023, ''The Quaker World'', ''The Ancient Israelite World'', and ''The Sámi World'' published in 2022.


Book series

* ''The Broadway Travellers'' (1926–37) edited by Eileen Power and Edward Denison Ross. * ''Colloquial Series of Multimedia Language Courses'' * ''Essential Grammars'' (since 1999) * ''Morley's Universal Library'' (also known as: ''Routledge's Universal Library'') (1883–88) * ''The Muses' Library'' (1904–1940; 1950–1980) *: established in 1891 by Lawrence & Bullen as a series of fine editions of poetry until L&B folded in 1900, Routledge revived the series in 1904 with reprints and new titles. Over the years parallel editions were published in the US by Charles Scribner's Sons, E.P. Dutton and Harvard University Press * '' The Republic of Letters'' * ''Routledge's Railway Library'' (1848–99) *: were sold through W. H. Smith's bookstalls on railway platforms; in 50 years 1,277 books were published, most as pictorial hardbacks, with some bestsellers re-released as cheaper paperbacks. Authors included Edward Bulwer Lytton, James Fenimore Cooper,
Jane Austen Jane Austen ( ; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for #List of works, her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment on the English landed gentry at the end of the 18th century ...
,
Benjamin Disraeli Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman, Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician and writer who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a ...
, Henry Fielding, Frances Trollope, William Harrison Ainsworth,
Alexandre Dumas Alexandre Dumas (born Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, 24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870), also known as Alexandre Dumas , was a French novelist and playwright. His works have been translated into many languages and he is one of the mos ...
, and
Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romanticism, Romantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, journalist, human rights activist and politician. His most famous works are the novels ''The Hunchbac ...


References


Citations


Sources

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External links

*
History of Routledge

Routledge Revivals
Reprints from humanities and social sciences publications, from the backlists of Routledge imprints.
Routledge & Kegan Paul Archives
Ledgers, authors' agreements, printed catalogues and other papers 1853–1973, University College London.
Records of Routledge & Kegan Paul
Correspondence files covering the period 1935 to 1990, as well as review files 1950s–1990s, Special Collections, University of Reading Library. * Archives of George Routledge & Company 1853–1902, Chadwyck-Healey Ltd, 1973. 6 reels of microfilm and printed index. (Available from ProQuest) * Archives of Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Henry S. King 1858–1912, Chadwyck-Healey Ltd,1973. 27 reels of microfilm with index on microfiche. (Available from Proquest) {{Use dmy dates, date=January 2020 Academic publishing companies Book publishing companies of the United Kingdom Companies based in Oxfordshire Reference publishers Vale of White Horse 1998 mergers and acquisitions 1851 establishments in England Publishing companies established in 1851