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| Founded | 1969; 56 years ago (1969) |
|---|---|
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Headquarters location | Manchester, England |
| Distribution | NBN International (UK) Independent Publishers Group (US) Sula Books (South Africa)[1] |
| Key people | Michael Schmidt |
| Publication types | Books |
| Official website | www.carcanet.co.uk |
Carcanet Press is a publisher, primarily of poetry, based in theUnited Kingdom. Originally a student magazine devised by undergraduates collaborating betweenOxford andCambridge, it was refounded in 1969 byMichael Schmidt.
In 2000 it was named theSunday Times millennium Small Publisher of the Year.
Carcanet was originally a literary magazine; it was founded in 1962 by students from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.[2] Michael Hind, a member of the original editorial board, recalls how the idea was to 'collect together and publish as a periodical poetry, short fiction, and "intelligent criticism of all the arts"; there were to be both student and senior members' contributions.' The intention was to linkOxford andCambridge universities.[2] Its name is an English word which means "a collar of jewels", diminutive of "carcan" (an obsolete word for a collar used for punishment), pronounced "kar'ka-net".[3] (A much earlier use of the word was inThe Carcanet, an anthology published in 1828.)
The magazineCarcanet had fallen on hard times by October 1967 whenMichael Schmidt, a newly arrived undergraduate atWadham College, Oxford, took it over. In 1969 as a swansong the magazine produced a few pamphlets: poetry by new writers from Britain, India and the United States, and a book of translations. The reviews were encouraging, and in 1970–71 Carcanet Press became a limited company, leavingSouth Hinksey, Oxford, for Manchester.
Carcanet enjoysArts Council England support. Its list includes, alongside new writers from all over the world, major authors from the twentieth and earlier centuries.[citation needed]
Carcanet was conceived at Pin Farm, South Hinksey, Oxford, in 1969 by Peter Jones,Gareth Reeves and Michael Schmidt, andGrevel Lindop was instrumental in suggesting the Fyfield Books series. In 1971, when Michael Schmidt was appointed Gulbenkian Writing Fellow at theUniversity of Manchester, Carcanet moved to 266 Councillor Lane,Cheadle Hulme,Cheshire, and in 1975 it came of age, taking a tiny suite of offices in theCorn Exchange, Manchester. However, the1996 Manchester bombing impacted heavily on the workings of Carcanet Press, forcing it to move to temporary offices in Manchester House,Princess Street, and then across the river Irwell to Blackfriars Street, Salford, where it stayed for six years before moving back into the centre of Manchester. It now resides in Cross Street.
Besides the main poetry list and its range of inventive fiction and criticism, Carcanet is also home to several imprints and series:
Carcanet issues the literary magazinePN Review[8], which appears six times a year.
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