Peter Owen Publishers is a family-run London-based independent publisher based in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. It was founded in 1951.John Self
"Peter Owen: Sixty years of innovation"
Books Blog, ''The Guardian'', 4 July 2011.

History

The company was founded in 1951 by Peter Owen, who had previously worked for Stanley Unwin at

The Bodley Head The Bodley Head is an English publishing house, founded in 1887 and existing as an independent entity until the 1970s. The name was used as an imprint of Random House Children's Books from 1987 to 2008. In April 2008, it was revived as an adul ...

. Owen's first editor was Muriel Spark, who would later write a novel called '' A Far Cry From Kensington'' drawing on her experiences working there. Their published authors include

Paul Bowles Paul Frederic Bowles (; December 30, 1910November 18, 1999) was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator. He became associated with the Moroccan city of Tangier, where he settled in 1947 and lived for 52 years to the end of his ...

and Jane Bowles, the Japanese Catholic author Shusaku Endo, the Spanish writers Julio Llamazares, José Ovejero,

Cristina Fernández Cubas Cristina Fernández Cubas (Arenys de Mar, Barcelona province, 1945) is a Spanish writer and journalist. She has been described as "one of the most important writers who have begun to publish since the end of the Franco dictatorship" and has been ...

and

Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarr ...

, as well as

André Gide André Paul Guillaume Gide (; 22 November 1869 – 19 February 1951) was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1947). Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism ...

Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (, , ; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the s ...

Colette Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (; 28 January 1873 – 3 August 1954), known mononymously as Colette, was a French author and woman of letters. She was also a mime, actress, and journalist. Colette is best known in the English-speaking world for her ...

, Anna Kavan,

Anaïs Nin Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell (February 11, 1903 – January 14, 1977; , ) was a French-born American diarist, essayist, novelist, and writer of short stories and erotica. Born to Cuban parents in France, Nin was the d ...

, Natsume Sōseki,

Yukio Mishima , born , was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the , an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered fo ...

Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...

Hermann Hesse Hermann Karl Hesse (; 2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include '' Demian'', '' Steppenwolf'', '' Siddhartha'', and '' The Glass Bead Game'', each of which explores an individual ...

Karoline Leach Karoline Leach (born 20 July 1967) is a British playwright and author, best known for her book '' In the Shadow of the Dreamchild'' (), which re-examines the life of Lewis Carroll (pseudonym of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), the author of ''Alice's ...

, the revisionist biographer of

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are '' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequ ...

, Hans Henny Jahnn, Tarjei Vesaas and Miranda Miller. So far, the independent press has published seven Nobel Prize winners. Although best known for fiction (especially in translation), the company also publishes plenty of non-fiction. In 1991, Owen compiled an anthology to commemorate forty years of publishing, ''The Peter Owen Anthology: Forty Years of Independent Publishing.'' Remaining independent since its founding, his press continues to publish today.Guide to the Peter Owen publishing records
Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware. Retrieved 17 May 2020. The company records are held in Special Collections at the

University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially UD or Delaware) is a public land-grant research university located in Newark, Delaware. UD is the largest university in Delaware. It offers three associate's programs, 148 bachelor's programs, 121 ma ...

References

External links

*
Peter Owen publishing records
Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware. Book publishing companies of the United Kingdom Publishing companies based in London Publishing companies established in 1951 1951 establishments in England {{UK-publish-company-stub