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INDEPENDENT THINKING SINCE 1795
Dracula, Walter Scott, a Pulitzer Prize and more - discover the history, notable books and authors of Constable & Robinson, leading independent book publisher since 1795, and 2012 Independent Publisher of the Year (Bookseller Award and IPG Award).
The name Constable first appeared as the publisher’s name on a book in 1795 when Archibald Constable, an Edinburgh bookseller, opened an antiquarian bookshop in Edinburgh and began to publish a few original works under his own name. More than two hundred years later, Constable & Robinson still publishes under the name of Constable and is the oldest independent publishing house in the English-speaking world still trading under the name of its founder. The company and the name of Constable has a rich and varied heritage.
HERITAGE
    
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1795 Archibald Constable sets up his antiquarian bookshop in Edinburgh selling ‘Scarce Old Books’ and begins to publish under his own name. George III is on the throne, the Prime Minister is William Pitt the Younger and construction of the Bank of England begins while a new tax on hair-powder quickly ends the fashion for powdering hair. 1805 Constable publishes Walter Scott’s The Lay of the Last Minstrel 1807 Constable pays Scott an enormous advance of 1000 guineas for his long poem Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field. By 1836 more than 50,000 copies have been sold. 1812 Constable buys the copyright of the Encyclopaedia Britannica for about £13,000 1827 Archibald Constable dies at his home in Edinburgh. 1847 Archibald Constable’s son, Thomas, enjoys success with his printing company, and launches into publishing under his own name. When Thomas dies 34 years later, his son Archibald (the second) takes over the printing business. 1890 Archibald Constable & Co. Ltd opens its offices in Newgate Street in London. 1896 Constable becomes one of the 58 founder members of the Publishers’ Association. 1897 Constable & Co. publishes Bram Stoker’s The Un-Dead, later to be retitled Dracula. 1902 Constable & Co. publishes Henry James’s The Wings of the Dove. 1903 George Bernard Shaw and Constable begin a publishing relationship which continues for the next 47 years. 1912 Michael Sadleir joins Constable. An influential publisher who acquired many important writers for the firm, he remained with Constable until his retirement in 1957. He also wrote many successful novels, including Fanny by Gaslight which was filmed in 1944. 1914 Fiercely opposed to the war, Bernard Shaw offers his article Common Sense About the War to Constable, writing "Would there be any sale for a sixpenny reprint entitled A Sensible View of the War or A Little Truth and Commonsense about the War or something like that? You wouldn’t mind having your windows broken, would you?" Published as a supplement to the New Statesman it causes huge controversy – newspapers tell their readers to boycott his plays, while libraries and bookshops remove his works from their shelves. 1924 First world publication of Herman Melville’s novella Billy Budd by Constable 1926 Constable publishes Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy. 1927 Michael Sadleir acquires John Dos Passos’s Manhattan Transfer. 1934 Constable publishes Jean Rhys’ Voyage in the Dark and Good Morning, Midnight (1939). 1940 Many of Constable’s books are destroyed in the Blitz bombing of Paternoster Row, then the heart of London's wholesale book trade. 1941 Publication of Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton. 1956 Publication of The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz. 1958 Constable becomes the exclusive UK agent for Dover Publications Inc. 1962 Constable begins to publish B.S. Johnson’s avant-garde novels, which included many unusual literary and production techniques. 1962 Constable buys UK rights in Charles Webb’s The Graduate, shortly afterwards becoming the Oscar-winning film starring Dustin Hoffman. 1968 The Hutchinson Group buys a minority shareholding in Constable. Hutchinson is later bought by London Weekend Television (LWT). 1983 Robinson Publishing founded by Nick Robinson. 1989 Constable’s crime list expands when it buys R.D. Wingfield’s Frost at Christmas, the first of a series of crime thrillers that became the basis of the popular TV series A Touch of Frost. 1999 Constable & Co. merges with Robinson Publishing and the two lists are consolidated as Constable & Robinson Ltd. 2007 Elliot Right Way Books, a successful publisher of ‘how-to’ titles, is purchased by Constable & Robinson Ltd. 2010 Constable launches a new fiction imprint, Corsair, which sees one of its first titles - Jennifer Egan's groundbreaking A Visit from the Goon Squad - win the Pulitzer Fiction Prize. 2012 Awarded 2012 Independent Publisher of the Year at both the Bookseller awards and the IPG awards, as well as Trade Publisher of the Year and the Ingram Digital Publishing Award. 2013 Constable & Robinson's Right Way imprint is joined by the respected How To Books list, offering inspirational guidance and advice on a multitude of subjects. |
PRESENT
Constable & Robinson continues into the 21st century as a truly independent company.
We publish a varied list of fiction and non-fiction titles as hardbacks, paperbacks and ebooks. Our non-fiction list includes current affairs, history and biography, psychology, self-help and illustrated titles while our fiction includes literary novels and a growing selection of genre fiction from Corsair and Canvas, with a sprinklng of young adult fiction from Much-in-Little.
Among our commercially successful series are the well-known Mammoth paperback anthologies, the bestselling and widely respected Overcoming list of CBT self-help titles, the Brief History and Brief Guide series, and inspirational guidebooks from Right Way and How To Books.
FURTHER INFORMATION
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TRADE and SALES INFORMATION
