Frances Lincoln | |
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| Born | Frances Elisabeth Rosemary Lincoln (1945-03-20)20 March 1945 London, England |
| Died | 26 February 2001(2001-02-26) (aged 55) |
| Occupation | Book publisher |
| Known for | Frances Lincoln Publishers;Woman of the Year for Services to Multicultural Publishing (1995) |
Frances Elisabeth Rosemary Lincoln (20 March 1945 – 26 February 2001) was an English independent publisher of illustrated books.[1][2] She published under her own name and the company went on to becomeFrances Lincoln Publishers. In 1995, Lincoln won theWoman of the Year for Services to Multicultural Publishing award.[1]
Frances Lincoln went "unhappily"[1] to school inBedford, moving after a year toSt George's School, Harpenden, where she becameHead Girl.[1] Her university education was atSomerville College,Oxford (Somerville at that time was a women's college, known inOxford as "thebluestocking college"). There she readGreats (the Oxford term for traditional courses in the humanities, with emphasis on the ancient classics of Greece and Rome, including philosophy).[1] A fellow-student, the drug smugglerHoward Marks, described her as "vivacious" in his 1996 autobiographyMr. Nice.[3]
In 1970, Lincoln started work as an Assistant Editor at theLondon-based publishing firm ofStudio Vista. She went on to become its managing director. From Studio Vista, she moved to a job with the publisherMarshall Cavendish, and from there toWeidenfeld and Nicolson, where she was given her ownimprint.[1]
A story that followed her throughout her career, often passed on from employees to new recruits, was of the staff-walkout and demonstration she headed while at Studio Vista in 1975. This was a protest against redundancies proposed byCollier Macmillan, the firm that had come to own Studio Vista. The protest went on for some days, and was described as a strike; it achieved concessions from Collier Macmillan.[1]
In 1977, Frances went out on her own as an independent publisher/packager, publishing both under her own name and in co-editions. The firm she founded continued as Frances Lincoln Publishers, based in London, until 2018.[4][5] In August 2011,The Quarto Group acquired Frances Lincoln Publishers for £4.5 million,[6] making it theFrances Lincoln Children's Book imprint. The firm was known for the list of illustrated gardening books it published, and for its illustrated children's books.[5] Among these were David Litchfield'sThe Bear and the Piano, which won the 2016Waterstones Children's Book Prize for Illustrated Books,[7] Sarah Garland'sAzzi In Between, which won Little Rebels Book Award in 2013,[8] and Lizzy Stewart'sThere's a Tiger in the Garden, which won the same prize in 2017.[9]
Frances Lincoln married John Nicoll, the author of the first book she had commissioned. Nicoll later headedYale University Press in the United Kingdom. The couple had a son and two daughters.[1] Lincoln died frompneumonia aged 55 in 2001.[1]