The firm was founded as a bookseller in 1809[1] by John Blackie (1782–1874) as a partnership with two others and was known as 'Blackie,Fullarton and Company'. It began printing in 1819, using the skill and equipment of Edward Khull.[2] It moved toGlasgow around 1830 and had premises at 8 Clyde Street facing theRiver Clyde.[3] Following the retirement of Fullarton the company was renamed 'Blackie and Son' in 1831, remaining in the Clyde Street property, and becoming a public limited company in 1890. Later on, the business moved its Glasgow office to 17 Stanhope Street, and also opened offices at 5 South College Street in Edinburgh and 16/18 William IV Street,Charing Cross, London.[4] The company also opened offices in Canada and India. It ceased publishing in 1991.
Blackie and Son initially publishedbooks sold by subscription, including religious texts and reference books. Later the firm published single volumes, particularly school-level educational texts[1] and children's books, taking advantage ofcompulsory education from 1870. It also published "finely printed 'toy' and 'reward' books"[1] (the latter being "intended for presentation as prizes to pupils in day and Sunday schools").[1]
In 1893 Blackie and Son appointedTalwin Morris as the firm's art director and book designer. During his tenure, until his death in 1911, Morris was "responsible for the first integrated and visually homogenised approach to the mass production of easily affordable books"[5] for any British publisher. He also designed books for Gresham Publishing, a subsidiary of Blackie and Son.[6]
From 1920, under the guidance of the Cambridge-trained engineer and mathematician, Frederick Bisacre, who became a Blackie and Son partner and subsequently its chairman,[8] the firm began to publish a scientific list "at the cutting edge of research"[9] and which would become the "strongest list in the area"[9] from any British commercial publisher.
Blackie published the many Flower Fairy books ofCicely Mary Barker beginning in 1923.[10] From the 1950s onwards it published The Kennett Library, a graded series of classics retold for schools including:Kidnapped,Little Women,Westward Ho!,The Black Arrow,Wuthering Heights andBen-Hur. From 1960 to 1991, Blackie published over 130 "Topsy and Tim" titles by Jean and Gareth Adamson.
In 1902, Walter Blackie commissionedHill House on a plot inHelensburgh to the West of Glasgow. The architect wasCharles Rennie Mackintosh, a friend of Talwin Morris. The house is regarded as one of Mackintosh's finest works.[11]
^abcdeCharles Lamb,Tales from Shakespeare Designed for the Use of Young People, London, Edinburgh and Bombay, n.d. (ca. 1917) (The Crown Library), publisher's advertisements in final pages.
^Publisher's advertisement in final pages of: Norman Macleod,The Starling, London, Glasgow, Dublin and Bombay: Blackie and Son, 1909. Retrieved 5 February 2024.
