Boriswood Limited was a small

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house which was active from 1931 until 1938. The directors, at various times, were Cecil J Greenwood, Kenneth W Marshall, John Morris and the New Zealander Terence T Bond. It also incorporated another imprint Cranley & Day. In its short existence Boriswood published at least 68 titles, in fine limited and trade editions, mainly of new poetry and fiction. Boriswood’s first trade edition book was printed in the basement of Boriswood's premises 15A Harrington Road,

South Kensington South Kensington is a district at the West End of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with the advent of the ra ...

on an electrified platen press. Boriswood’s list was left-leaning, modernist and provocative. Roy Campbell was one of the first poets to be published by the firm (''The Georgiad'' 1931) while James Hanley was their most important novelist. Hanley’s ''

Boy A boy is a young male human. The term is commonly used for a child or an adolescent. When a male human reaches adulthood, he is usually described as a man. Definition, etymology, and use According to the ''Merriam-Webster Dictionary'', a boy ...

'' was one of their first books, published in 1931. It eventually led to Boriswood’s prosecution in Manchester in 1935 for obscene libel. Boriswood pleaded guilty (as advised) and was fined a large sum. This, together with the associated controversy, eventually led to its closure and its stock was purchased by Greenwood. T E Lawrence and K W Marshall corresponded about the litigation around ''Boy''. The remaining copies of the trade edition of Boy were sold to the Obelisk Press which re-published it in 1935. (It was republished by

Penguin Penguins are a group of aquatic flightless birds from the family Spheniscidae () of the order Sphenisciformes (). They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere. Only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is equatorial, with a sm ...

in 1990 with an introduction by

Anthony Burgess John Anthony Burgess Wilson, (; 25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993) who published under the name Anthony Burgess, was an English writer and composer. Although Burgess was primarily a comic writer, his Utopian and dystopian fiction, dy ...

). Amongst Boriswood’s other authors were

Georges Bernanos Louis Émile Clément Georges Bernanos (; 20 February 1888 – 5 July 1948) was a French author, and a soldier in World War I. A Catholic with monarchist leanings, he was critical of elitist thought and was opposed to what he identified as d ...

Hart Crane Harold Hart Crane (July 21, 1899 – April 27, 1932) was an American poet. Inspired by the Romantics and his fellow Modernists, Crane wrote highly stylized poetry, often noted for its complexity. His collection '' White Buildings'' (1926), feat ...

, Vardis Fisher, Simon Jesty,

Archibald MacLeish Archibald MacLeish (May 7, 1892 – April 20, 1982) was an American poet and writer, who was associated with the modernist school of poetry. MacLeish studied English at Yale University and law at Harvard University. He enlisted in and saw action ...

, John Pudney,

Jules Romains Jules Romains (born Louis Henri Jean Farigoule; 26 August 1885 – 14 August 1972) was a French poet and writer and the founder of the Unanimism literary movement. His works include the play '' Knock ou le Triomphe de la médecine'', and a cyc ...

and Rex Warner. Boriswood published several translations of Soviet fiction by Alec Brown, including Yury Tynyanov's ''Death and Diplomacy in Persia''.Ali Gheissari, ''Iranian Intellectuals in the Twentieth Century''. University of Texas Press, 2010 (p. 237) Boriswood employed important illustrators of the day including David Jones and

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

-born artist

James Boswell James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (; 29 October 1740 ( N.S.) – 19 May 1795), was a Scottish biographer, diarist, and lawyer, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for his biography of the English writer Samuel Johnson, '' Life of Samuel ...

for its illustrated dust wrappers. Boriswood's non fiction list included risqué titles for their day such as ''The Sexual Impulse'' (1935) by Edward Charles and, unusually, a book on furniture and design, extensively illustrated with photographs, ''Modern Furniture'' (1936) by E Nelson Exton and Frederic H Littman.

References

Armstrong, J (1997) ''The Publication, Prosecution, and Re-Publication of James Hanley’s Boy'' 1931. Library s6-19, 351-362
Marriott, P. & Argent, Y, ''The Last Days of T E Lawrence: A Leaf in the Wind'', Alpha Press, Brighton, 1996 {{reflist

External links

"Loyal son brings "Boy" back to Life", ''Camden New Journal'', 31 May 200

"Boy, by James Hanley" ''The Independent'

Publishing companies of the United Kingdom Book design 1931 establishments in the United Kingdom