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. 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 ...

. 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 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 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 Hornby may refer to: Places In England * Hornby, Lancashire * Hornby, Hambleton, village in North Yorkshire * Hornby, Richmondshire, village in North Yorkshire Elsewhere * Hornby, Ontario, community in the town of Halton Hills, Ontario, Canad ...

and Airfix), 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. Conway has also produced the books to accompany '' James May's Toy Stories'' and the Dan Snow-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 imprint. As of 2018, ''Warship'' is published by Bloomsbury's

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 ...

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's Toy Stories'', 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 Richard Endsor is a British naval historian and maritime artist. Professional career Richard Endsor trained as a production engineer, before working for BroomWade, an international engineering company, where he became responsible for all aspe ...

Peter Goodwin Peter Goodwin is a British academic who is a Principal Research Fellow of the Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI) at the University of Westminster. Work Goodwin has worked at the University of Westminster since 1994. He has been ...

Jean Hood Jean Hood is a maritime author and historian. Biography Jean Hood read English Literature at the University of Durham and began her professional career working in the cardboard industry as an advertising copywriter. Advertising soon led Hood ...

Geoff Hunt Geoffrey Brian Hunt, (born 11 March 1947), is a retired Australian Squash (sport), squash player who is widely considered to be one of the greatest squash players in history. He was ranked the World No.1 squash player from 1975 to 1980. He ...

* Richard Johnstone-Bryden * Andrew Lambert * Brian Lavery *

James Lees James Lees (born 14 February 1924) was a British maritime expert and writer who was curator of the ship collection and Senior Conservation Officer at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. Biography Born in 1924, James Lees served both in th ...

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 * Bruce Parry *

Antony Preston Antony Preston (26 February 1938 – 25 December 2004) was an England, English naval history, naval historian and editor, specialising in the area of 19th and 20th-century naval history and warship design. Life Antony Preston was born in 19 ...

* Martin Robson Robert C. Sinclair * David Stone * James Taylor

References

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