Shire Books are published by

Bloomsbury Publishing Bloomsbury Publishing plc is a British worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. It is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index. Bloomsbury's head office is located in Bloomsbury, an area of the London Borough of Camden. It has a U ...

, a

book publishing Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, news ...

company 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 ...

, and formerly by Shire Publications Ltd. and

Osprey Publishing Osprey Publishing is a British, Oxford-based, publishing company specializing in military history. Predominantly an illustrated publisher, many of their books contain full-colour artwork plates, maps and photographs, and the company produces ov ...

. Shire offers low priced, concise non-fiction paperbacks on a wide range of subjects. Shire books cover

antiques An antique ( la, antiquus; 'old', 'ancient') is an item perceived as having value because of its aesthetic or historical significance, and often defined as at least 100 years old (or some other limit), although the term is often used loosely ...

and collectables, motoring and

rural history In historiography, rural history is a field of study focusing on the history of societies in rural areas. At its inception, the field was based on the economic history of agriculture. Since the 1980s it has become increasingly influenced by social ...

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsc ...

and

Egyptology Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native relig ...

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

, industrial history and many other topics.

First decades

Founded in 1962 by John Rotheroe, the company was for many years based in

Princes Risborough Princes Risborough () is a market town in Buckinghamshire, England, about south of Aylesbury and north west of High Wycombe. It lies at the foot of the Chiltern Hills, at the north end of a gap or pass through the Chilterns, the south end o ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-e ...

. The first book published by Shire was ''Discovering East Suffolk'', a 24-page guide to the county through a series of five motoring routes and a gazetteer of the main towns and villages. It was given away to visitors via coach operators, local churches and tourist information points. The book was successful and when it was realized that many of the copies given away were being resold it was decided to sell the second edition, and this set the template for the future of Shire. Over the following years Shire expanded its Discovering series and launched several new series including Lifelines,Shire Publications
biblio.com. Retrieved 10 February 2019. Shire Albums, Shire Archaeology, and Shire Egyptology.

2007 onwards

In 2007 the company was acquired by Oxford-based military history publisher

Osprey The osprey (''Pandion haliaetus''), , also called sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor reaching more than in length and across the wings. It is brown o ...

and operated from Osprey's offices in Oxford. During 2008 Shire began a revamp of its list. It was announced that several former Shire series (including Life Lines, Shire Garden History and History in Camera) would be absorbed into a new series called Shire Library, which would retain and expand on the numbering system used by the old Album series, which has long formed the backbone of the Shire Library. Books in the Shire Library were to have a new series cover design, as would reissued books in the Archaeology and Egyptology series. It was further announced that Shire's list of forthcoming publications would include an increased number of new titles, as well as reissues of out-of-print titles, and new editions of existing titles. In December 2010 Osprey Publishing, along with all the Shire titles, was acquired by

References

External links

Bloomsbury Heritage
- current website for Shire books
"Shire Books: a specialist publisher of offbeat and obscure books"
Stephen McClarence, ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...

'', 25 July 2008.
Discovering series (Shire Publications)
l, publishinghistory.com.
A Library for Historians
threepointsofthecompass.com. Book publishing companies of the United Kingdom {{publishing-stub

First decades

2007 onwards

Further reading

References

External links