Orbis Publishing Ltd. was a

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

-based publisher of

book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical ...

s and

partwork A partwork is a written publication released as a series of planned magazine-like issues over a period of time. Issues are typically released on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis, and often a completed set is designed to form a reference wo ...

Company history

Orbis Publishing Limited was founded in 1970. The company was originally registered on 25 November 1969 under the name Reefdell Limited with the company director and secretary named as Stanley Harold Davis, of 3-5 Leonard Street, City Road, London E.C.2. and the office manager named as David Ordish of the same address.DE AGOSTINI UK LIMITED - Filing History
gov.uk. Retrieved 3 November 2022. On 1 June 1970 the name of the company was changed to Orbis Publishing Limited and the company secretary was at that date named as S. D. Davis. Orbis employed many writers, researchers, academics, designers, artists and photographers to create the contents for the issues in their various partworks series, including

John Gooders John Gooders (10 January 1937 – 18 May 2010) was a British writer who first came to prominence with his first book ''Where to Watch Birds''. At the time he was a teacher, and a lecturer at Avery Hill College. Career in television In 1970, a ...

, a prolific writer of books on birdlife, who was a consultant editor to Orbis's partwork series ''The Encyclopaedia of Birds'', his work there being so successful as "to merit and entension, requiring Gooders to write a further 12,000 words a week for each of the 26 additional issues". Partworks publishing was a highly competitive market and for the launch of its partwork series, ''World of Wildlife'' in 1971, Orbis Publishing spent "£110,000 for television commercials and another £12,000 for full-page advertisements in the nationals - all crammed into a single message-laden week". Orbis Publishing was merged into De Agostini UK Ltd in 1999 after being acquired by the Italian

De Agostini De Agostini S.p.A. is an Italian holding company that coordinates the strategic operating companies De Agostini Editore, De Agostini Communications, IGT, and DeA Capital, and makes financial investments, among which the main investment is a ...

group.

Partworks

* ''Scandal'' * ''

Natural Choice Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans a ...

'' * ''One to One'' * ''

The Home Computer Course ''The Home Computer Course'' () was a partwork magazine published by Orbis Publishing in the United Kingdom during 1983 and 1984, covering the subject of home computer technology. It ran for 24 weekly issues, before being succeeded by ''The Ho ...

'' * ''

The Home Computer Advanced Course ''The Home Computer Advanced Course 1'' () was a partwork magazine published by Orbis Publishing in the United Kingdom during 1984 and 1985, providing a comprehensive introduction to computing and computer technology for home computer users. It ...

'' * ''PC Genius'' * ''NAM (The Vietnam Experience 1965-75)'' * ''Unsolved'' * ''The

Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft The ''Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft'' was a weekly partwork magazine by Aerospace Publishing (an imprint of Orbis Publishing) which was published in the United Kingdom (and sold in other countries too) during the early 1980s. The magazi ...

'' * ''War in Peace'' * ''War Machine'' * ''The Elite: Against All Odds'' * ''The Blues Collection'' * '' The Unexplained'' * ''The British Empire'' * ''Play it Today'' * ''All About Science'' * ''The Movie: The Illustrated History of the Cinema,'' published (in 158 chapters) * ''World of Automobiles'' * ''On Four Wheels'' (in 165 parts) * ''On Two Wheels '' (in 121 parts) * ''The Encyclopedia of Super Cars'' * ''The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Wildlife'' (in 62 parts) * ''Warplane'' (in 120 parts) * ''The History of Rock'' * ''World War II'' * ''The Classic Collection'' * ''Dinosaurs! (An Orbis Play and Learn Collection)'' * ''Bugs (An Orbis Play and Learn Collection)''

Albums

Some magazine partworks were published accompanied with compilation albums. * ''The History of Rock'' (40 volume compilation of vinyl records or

audio cassette The Compact Cassette or Musicassette (MC), also commonly called the tape cassette, cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Otte ...

s) 1981-1987 * ''The Blues Collection'' (CD) 1993-1997

References

External links

De Agostini UK website
Publishing companies of the United Kingdom Publishing companies established in 1970 {{UK-publish-company-stub