Panther Books Ltd was a British publishing house especially active in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, specialising in paperback fiction.

Company history

It was established in May 1952 by Hamilton & Co. (Stafford) Ltd. and titles carried the line "A Panther Book" or "Panther Science Fiction" on the cover.

Science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

was one of its major genres; its titles included

Ray Bradbury Ray Douglas Bradbury ( ; August 22, 1920June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, Horror fiction, horr ...

's ''

The Golden Apples of the Sun ''The Golden Apples of the Sun'' is an anthology of 22 short stories by American writer Ray Bradbury. It was published by Doubleday & Company in 1953. The book's title is also the title of the final story in the collection. The words "the go ...

'' and

Asimov Isaac Asimov ( ; – April 6, 1992) was an Russian-born American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. ...

's Foundation Trilogy. In 1954, Gordon Landsborough was employed as editor and started improving the quality of the imprint. Instead of publishing original genre novels in paperback and hardback, Panther Books became a reprint publisher, doing paperback reprints of best-selling hardcover novels from other publishers. The quality of the cover art was improved and the list expanded to include non-fiction titles and fiction titles by internationally known, best-selling writers. By April 1966, books published under the Panther name indicate that the business was based at 108

Brompton Road Brompton Road is a street located in the southern part from Knightsbridge and in the eastern part from Brompton, London, Brompton in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and partly the City of Westminster in London. It starts from ...

, London, S.W.5. However, records of the tumultuous process of mergers and acquisitions in the publishing industry show that by 1968, Granada Group Ltd had acquired a number of publishers who became subsidiary companies of Granada Publishing Ltd. These included, among others, Panther Books Ltd, and thus Panther Science Fiction became a Granada imprint. In 1983, Granada sold the publishing side of its business to the Scottish publishers

William Collins, Sons William Collins, Sons & Co., often referred to as Collins, was a Scotland, Scottish printing and publishing company founded by a Presbyterianism, Presbyterian schoolmaster, William Collins (publisher), William Collins, in Glasgow in 1819, in par ...

& Co, based in

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

. In 1989, William Collins Sons & Co merged with the American publishers

Harper & Row Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins, based in New York City. Founded in New York in 1817 by James Harper and his brother John, the company operated as J. & J. Harper until 1833, when ...

, located in New York, to form

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five (publishers), Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, Macmi ...

, the British side of the company being managed through HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. HarperCollins Publishers continued to trade. , the head office is at Bishopbriggs, Glasgow, employing about 500 people.

Sources

Records of Granada Publishing Ltd

Glasgow University The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in post-nominals; ) is a public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ...

Archives Service
Records of William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd

Archives Service
Crash by J.G. Ballard (Triad / Panther Books, 1985)
at fontinuse.com
Pulp Friday: The Man With the Brown Paper Face
pulpcurry.com - discussion of Panther's book cover design
Out of Space and Time: Books by Clark Ashton Smith
at strangelyperfect.tv - designer of cover art for Panther Books

References

British speculative fiction publishers Science fiction publishers Book publishing companies of the United Kingdom {{publish-stub