Heinemann (publisher)

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  William Heinemann Ltd opened its doors in Covent Garden, London, in 1890 with a single book to its name. That book was Hall Caine's The Bondman, described at the time as a "stunning success." It went on to sell more than 450,000 copies. For a company that had not existed a year earlier, this was an almost impossible opening. Who was the man capable of staking a new venture on a single novel? What did his instincts produce over the decades that followed? And what happens to a publisher built on ambition when its founders are gone and the age of the corporate conglomerate arrives?

• 2. Trübner's Apprentice

  ›

  Nicolas Trübner was known across London's publishing circles for a specialty in what the trade then called Oriental scholarship. William Heinemann spent his formative years working under Trübner, absorbing the business of publishing in that particular corner of the field. When Trübner died, his company passed to the firm of Kegan Paul. Heinemann chose not to follow.

  By 1893, Sydney Pawling had joined the firm as a partner. Through the 1890s, the company became particularly associated with the work of the novelist Sarah Grand. Among their publishing ventures was a series called "Heinemann's International Library," which presented foreign works in English translation, edited by the writer Edmund Gosse. Heinemann also published the British edition of Scribner's Great Educators series. Critics noted that the British edition omitted credit for the original American editor, Nicholas Murray Butler, an omission that brought public criticism.

  Between 1895 and 1897, Heinemann served as publisher for the New Review, a periodical edited by William Ernest Henley.

• 3. A Global Trade

  ›

  In 1897, Heinemann became the British publisher for Joseph Conrad's The Nigger of the 'Narcissus.' In the same period, Heinemann and the American publisher Frank Doubleday were providing Conrad with financial support during his initial work on what would eventually be published as The Rescue.

  Japan in the late nineteenth century was developing a strong appetite for works of Western culture. Heinemann found a willing partner in the Japanese bookstore Maruzen, through which the company sold translations of the works of Dostoyevsky and 5,000 copies of Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution by Peter Kropotkin.

  In 1912, Heinemann launched the Loeb Classical Library. The series presented ancient Greek and Latin texts on the left-hand page, with a literal English translation on the right. It has been described as "the most significant" of all parallel-text translation series. Since 1934, it has been co-published with Harvard University.

• 4. The Literary Roster

  ›

  Through the 1920s, Heinemann built a list of authors whose work had previously appeared in serial form. H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, W. Somerset Maugham, George Moore, Max Beerbohm, and Henry James all appeared on the company's catalogue.

  Graham Greene, Edward Upward, J. B. Priestley, and Vita Sackville-West all brought their first editions to Heinemann.

  After Heinemann's death, Sydney Pawling sold the company's majority stake to the American publisher Doubleday. Theodore Byard, who had previously been a professional singer, joined to lead the London offices. Pawling died in 1922, and new management took over the firm. Doubleday eventually sold its interest in 1933.

  In the years after the Second World War, the company shifted its attention toward educational materials. That new direction would eventually take it toward voices from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.

• 5. Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean

  ›

  In 1957, Heinemann Educational Books created the African Writers Series. The project was led by Alan Hill and a West Africa specialist named Van Milne. Chinua Achebe served as its first advisory editor. The series aimed to bring the writers of Africa to an English-speaking readership. Heinemann was awarded the 1992 Worldaware Award for Social Progress, in part for what the series had achieved.

  Leon Comber launched the Writing in Asia Series in 1966, from Singapore, directly inspired by the African Writers Series. Two books by Austin Coates, Myself a Mandarin and City of Broken Promises, became bestsellers. After publishing more than 70 titles, the series folded in 1984 when Heinemann Asia was absorbed by a parent group of publishers.

  In 1970, James Currey and colleagues at Heinemann Educational Books launched the Caribbean Writers Series. Modelled on the African Writers Series, it aimed to republish work by major Caribbean writers.

  Pearson relaunched the African Writers Series in 2011. Its return came after decades of corporate change that had dispersed Heinemann's catalogue across multiple owners.

• 6. Sold and Sold Again

  ›

  Thomas Tilling's investment arm had been slowly acquiring Heinemann through the 1950s, and by 1961 the company was fully under the conglomerate's control. Graham Greene, who had first published with Heinemann in 1929, led a group of authors in protest. Greene and others moved their work to other publishers, including The Bodley Head, of which Greene was a director.

  Heinemann had opened offices in The Hague in 1953 to distribute English-language books across continental Europe. Those offices eventually began printing Heinemann's books directly. In 1978, a separate American subsidiary was established in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to publish educational books for school teachers of language arts.

  In 1983, BTR purchased Thomas Tilling and showed no interest in retaining a publishing division. Heinemann was put up for sale and purchased by Octopus Publishing Group in 1985. Shortly afterward, the Heinemann headquarters in rural Kingswood, Surrey, were sold for development. Octopus was purchased by Reed International in 1987. In 1990, Heinemann Professional Publishing was merged with Butterworths Scientific to form Butterworth-Heinemann.

  From 1997 onward, Heinemann's catalogue was split across multiple buyers. Random House purchased the trade publishing unit, renamed William Heinemann, in 1997. In 1998, Egmont Group took Heinemann's children's publishing, while Macmillan Education acquired Heinemann ELT. The remaining educational operations passed to Harcourt Education in 2001. Pearson purchased the UK, South African, Australian, and New Zealand arms of Harcourt Education in May 2007. Houghton Mifflin took the American operations a few months later. In 2008, Pearson sold the school library publisher Heinemann-Raintree to Capstone Publishers.

  In 2020, Egmont Group sold its UK book division to HarperCollins. The following year, Penguin Random House merged William Heinemann with Hutchinson to create Hutchinson Heinemann. Most of the companies that now hold parts of the original catalogue continue to publish under the Heinemann imprint.