Hogarth originally published the works of many members of theBloomsbury Group,[1] and was at the forefront of publishing works onpsychoanalysis and translations of foreign, especially Russian, works.
In 1938, Virginia Woolf relinquished her interest in the business and it was then run as a partnership by Leonard Woolf andJohn Lehmann until 1946, when it became an associate company ofChatto & Windus.[2] In 2011, Hogarth Press was relaunched as an imprint for contemporary fiction in a partnership between Chatto & Windus in the United Kingdom andCrown Publishing Group in the United States, which had both been acquired byRandom House.[3]
Printing began as a hobby for the Woolfs, and it provided a diversion for Virginia when writing became too stressful.[4] The couple bought a handpress in 1917 for£19 (equivalent to about £1295 in 2018)[5] and taught themselves how to use it. The press was set up in the dining room of Hogarth House, where the Woolfs lived, lending its name to the publishing company they founded. In July they published their first text, a book with one story written by Leonard and the other written by Virginia.[6]
From these origins as a 'little press', by the late 1920s the Hogarth Press had become a larger operation, using commercial printers and distributing to an international readership, with some of its bestsellers printed in the tens of thousands.[7][8]
The frontispiece of a publication from 1929 with Hogarth's official logo portraying the head of a wolf[13]
The Hogarth Press produced a number of publication series that were affordable as well as being attractively bound and printed, and usually commissioned from well known authors. These include the initialHogarth Essays in three series 1924–1947 (36 titles),Hogarth Lectures on Literature (2 series 1927–1951),Merttens Lectures on War and Peace (8 titles 1927–1936),Hogarth Living Poets (29 titles 1928–1937),Day to Day Pamphlets (1930–1939),Hogarth Letters (12 titles 1931–1933) andWorld-Makers and World-Shakers (4 titles 1937).[14]
TheEssays were the first series produced by the press and include works byVirginia Woolf,Leonard Woolf andGertrude Stein. Virginia Woolf's defence ofmodernism,Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown (1924) was the initial publication in the series. Cover illustrations were by Woolf’s sisterVanessa Bell. Bell also designed book jackets for all of Woolf’s books that were published by Hogarth Press.[15][14]
In 2015 Hogarth Press began producing a series of modern retellings ofWilliam Shakespeare plays, known as theHogarth Shakespeare Project, for which it hired a variety of authors:
Gaither, Mary E. "The Hogarth Press 1917–1946" pp. xvii–xxxiv in J. Howard Woolmer (1986),A checklist of the Hogarth Press 1917–1946, Woolmer Brotherson Ltd.ISBN0-906795-38-9.
Spater, George; Parsons, IanA Marriage of True Minds: An Intimate Portrait of Leonard and Virginia Woolf (1977. London: J. Cape.) Harvest/HBJ paperbackISBN0-15-657299-0
Willis, J. H. (1992),Leonard and Virginia Woolf as Publishers: The Hogarth Press, 1917–41, University Press of Virginia.ISBN0-8139-1361-6.
Woolf, Virginia (1932).A Letter to a Young Poet. The Hogarth Letters. Vol. 8. Hogarth Press.
Woolmer, J. Howard. "Publications of The Hogarth Press" pp. 3–178 in J. Howard Woolmer (1986),A checklist of the Hogarth Press 1917–1946, Woolmer Brotherson Ltd.ISBN0-906795-38-9.
Woolmer, J. Howard.A Checklist of the Hogarth Press, 1917–1938 (1976) [With a short history of the press by Mary E. Gaither] Woolmer/Brotherson, 1986, 250 p.:ISBN0-913506-17-6 (compareHogarth Press Publications, 1917–1946 at Duke University Library that uses the numbering of the Woolmer publication)
^abjoint venture with Amperwelle Studio München Programmanbietergesellschaft,Axel Springer AG, Burda, Studio Gong, m.b.t. Mediengesellschaft der bayerischen Tageszeitungen für Kabelkommunikation, Medienpool and Radio Bavaria Rundfunkprogrammgesellschaft.
^joint venture with Verlagsgesellschaft Madsack, Studio Gong Niedersachsen and Brune-Rieck-Beteiligungs.
^joint venture with Axel Springer, Heinrich Bauer Verlag, Lühmanndruck Harburger Zeitungsgesellschaft and Morgenpost Verlag.
