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Peter Owen Publishers

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Peter Owen Publishers
Founded1951
FounderPeter Owen
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Headquarters locationLondon
DistributionCombined Book Services (UK)
NewSouth Books (Australia)
Independent Publishers Group (US)[1]
Publication typesBooks
Official websitewww.peterowen.com

Peter Owen Publishers was founded in 1951 as a family-run independent publisher based in London, England.[2] The company was acquired by Pushkin Press in 2022.

History

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The company was founded in 1951 by Peter Owen, who had previously worked for Stanley Unwin at The Bodley Head.[2] 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.[3]

Their published authors include Paul Bowles and Jane Bowles, the Japanese Catholic author Shusaku Endo, the Spanish writers Julio Llamazares,[4] José Ovejero, Cristina Fernández Cubas, Antonio Soler and Salvador Dalí,[5] as well as André Gide, Jean Cocteau, Colette, Anna Kavan, Anaïs Nin,[6] Natsume Sōseki, Yukio Mishima, Gertrude Stein, Hermann Hesse,[2] Karoline Leach, the revisionist biographer of Lewis Carroll, Hans Henny Jahnn, Tarjei Vesaas and Miranda Miller. The 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.[7] The company records are held in Special Collections at the University of Delaware.

References

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  1. ^ "Sales". Peter Owen Publishers. Retrieved 26 December 2017.
  2. ^ a b c John Self, "Peter Owen: Sixty years of innovation", Books Blog, The Guardian, 4 July 2011.
  3. ^ Emily Hill, "Novel Approach: Peter Owen", Dazed, February 2011.
  4. ^ "Wolf Moon by Julio Llamazares, Peter Owen Publishers, 2017".
  5. ^ Julie Cirelli, "Peter Owen on Salvador Dalí", AnOther, 24 June 2011.
  6. ^ Stephen Fowler, "Blazing the trail: an interview with Peter Owen", 3:AM Magazine, 24 November 2009.
  7. ^ Guide to the Peter Owen publishing records, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
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