Conway Publishing, formerly Conway Maritime Press, is an imprint of

Bloomsbury Publishing Bloomsbury Publishing plc is a British worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. Bloomsbury's head office is located on Bedford Square in Bloomsbury, an area of the London Borough of Camden. It has a US publishing office located in ...

. It is best known for its publications dealing with nautical subjects.

History

Conway Maritime Press was founded in 1972 as an independent publisher. Its origins lay in catering for a specialised readership, publishing quarterly journals such as ''Model Shipwright'' and ''Warship'', which would subsequently evolve into the popular annuals still existent today. These, along with the long-running '' Anatomy of the Ship'' series, published in conjunction with the

Naval Institute Press The United States Naval Institute (USNI) is a private non-profit military association that offers independent, nonpartisan forums for debate of national security issues. In addition to publishing magazines and books, the Naval Institute holds se ...

in the United States, have become stalwarts of the Conway catalogue. Over its history, it has built an extensive catalogue of books specialising in maritime heritage, ship design and construction, and naval military history, from authoritative figures such as Brian Lavery, 'one of the best naval historians in Britain, if not the world,' according to ''BBC History Magazine''. ''Nautical Magazine'' wrote, of Richard Endsor's ''Restoration Warship'', 'From the dust cover into the book and right the way through it, this is a magnificent publication with a tremendous amount of detail.'

Conway Publishing

In 2005

Anova Books HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the " Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster. HarperCollins is ...

bought Conway Maritime Press. Around this time the publisher was renamed Conway Publishing. Whilst still committed to producing specialist maritime books, Conway broadened their catalogue to incorporate general, military and aviation history, exploration, as well as railway and scale modelling (with Hornby and

Airfix Airfix is a British brand and former manufacturing company which produced Injection moulding, injection-moulded plastic model, plastic scale model kits. In the UK, the name 'Airfix' has become practically synonymous with plastic models of this typ ...

), amongst other related topics. In recent years, Conway has found success with several television series tie-ins. In line with the current heritage culture espoused by television shows such as BBC's ''Who Do You Think You Are?'' and coordinating with several recent international anniversaries, Conway released a series of popular nostalgic reproduction wartime pocket-books ranging from officers' manuals, the Spitfire, to the

Home Guard Home guard is a title given to various military organizations at various times, with the implication of an emergency or reserve force raised for local defense. The term "home guard" was first officially used in the American Civil War, starting ...

. Conway has also produced the books to accompany ''

James May's Toy Stories ''James May's Toy Stories'' is a UK documentary television series created and presented by James May, and produced by Plum Pictures for the BBC. The programme focused on bringing some of the most notable toys conceived in the past into the mode ...

'' and the

Dan Snow Daniel Robert Snow (born 3 December 1978) is a British Popular history, popular historian and television presenter. He is an ambassador of the Electoral Reform Society (ERS). Early life and education Born in Westminster, London Dan Snow is the ...

-presented ''Empire of the Seas'', both aired on the BBC. The latter book, written by Brian Lavery, would become a No. 2 ''Sunday Times Bestseller''. In April 2010, Conway attained the book rights to Bruce Parry's Arctic adventure, broadcast on BBC2 later in the year. In September 2014

bought Conway from Anova to join its existing

Adlard Coles Nautical Adlard Coles Nautical is a nautical publisher, with over 300 books in print. The company publishes books on topics of interest to sailors and motorboaters and also ‘landlubbers’ with an interest in the sea. Their list includes almanacs, crui ...

imprint. As of 2018, ''Warship'' is published by Bloomsbury's

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

imprint.

Bibliography

A selection of works:

Annuals and series

* ''Shipwright'' (formerly ''Model Shipwright'') * ''Warship'' * ''Anatomy of the Ship'' * ''Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships'' (4 volumes covering from 1860 to 1995)

Television accompaniments

* ''

'', James May (2009) * ''Empire of the Seas'', Brian Lavery (2009) * ''Arctic'', Bruce Parry (2011)

Featured works

* ''Face to Face: Polar Portraits'', Huw Lewis-Jones (2009) * ''The Restoration Warship'', Richard Endsor (2009) * ''Hitler's Army'', David Stone (2009) * ''The Voyage of the Beagle'', James Taylor (2008) * ''The Marine Art of Geoff Hunt'', Geoff Hunt (2004) * ''The Royal Yacht Britannia: The Official History'', Richard Johnstone-Bryden (2003) * ''Nelson's Navy'', Brian Lavery (1989)

Pocket books

* ''The Spitfire Pocket Manual'', compiled and introduced by Martin Robson (2010) * ''The Secret Agent's Pocket Manual: 1939-1945'', Stephen Bull (2009) * ''Not Enough Room To Swing a Cat: Naval Slang and its Everyday Usage'', Martin Robson (2008) * ''The Royal Navy Officer's Pocket-Book, 1944'', edited by Brian Lavery (2007)

Authors

A list of Conway authors (in alphabetical order): * John Blake * John Bowen * Philip Dawson * Richard Endsor * Ewart C. Freeston * Peter Goodwin * Jean Hood * Geoff Hunt * Richard Johnstone-Bryden *

Andrew Lambert Andrew David Lambert (born 31 December 1956) is a British naval historian, who since 2001 has been the Laughton Professor of Naval History in the Department of War Studies, King's College London. Academic career After completing his doctoral ...

* Brian Lavery * James Lees *

Huw Lewis-Jones Huw Lewis-Jones (born 2 May 1980) is a British historian, editor, broadcaster and art director. Formerly a historian and Curator of Art at the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, Lewis-Jones left Cambridge in June 2010 to pur ...

James May James Daniel May (born 16 January 1963) is an English television presenter and journalist. He is best known as a co-presenter, alongside Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond, of the motoring programme ''Top Gear (2002 TV series), Top Gear'' fr ...

* Bruce Parry * Antony Preston * Martin Robson Robert C. Sinclair * David Stone *

James Taylor James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A six-time Grammy Award winner, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. Taylor achieved his breakthrough in 1970 with the single "Fi ...

References

{{reflist Book publishing companies of the United Kingdom Maritime magazines Publishing companies established in 1972