In 1998, Routledge became a subdivision andimprint of its former rival,Taylor & Francis Group (T&F), as a result of a £90-million acquisition deal fromCinven, a venture capital group which had purchased it two years previously for £25 million.[6] Following the merger ofInforma and T&F in 2004, Routledge became a publishing unit and major imprint within the Informa "academic publishing" division.[7] Routledge is headquartered in the main T&F office inMilton Park, Abingdon,Oxfordshire and also operates from T&F offices globally including inPhiladelphia,Melbourne,New Delhi,Singapore, andBeijing.[8]
The firm originated in 1836, when the London booksellerGeorge Routledge published an unsuccessful guidebook,The Beauties of Gilsland, with his brother-in-law W. H. (William Henry) Warne as assistant. In 1848, the pair entered the booming market for selling inexpensive imprints of works of fiction to rail travellers, in the style of the GermanTauchnitz family, which became known as the "Railway Library".[9][10]
The venture was a success as railway usage grew, and it eventually led to Routledge, along with W H Warne's brotherFrederick Warne, to found the company,George Routledge & Co. in 1851.[11]The following year in 1852, the company gained lucrative business through selling reprints ofUncle Tom's Cabin, (in thepublic domain in the UK) which in turn enabled it to pay authorEdward Bulwer-Lytton £20,000 for a 10-yearlease allowing sole rights to print all 35 of his works[9][12] including 19 of his novels to be sold cheaply as part of their "Railway Library" series.[13]
Routledge stand at Senate House History Day 2018
The company was restyled in 1858 asRoutledge, Warne & Routledge when George Routledge's son, Robert Warne Routledge, entered the partnership. Frederick Warne eventually left the company after the death of his brother W. H. Warne in May 1859 (died aged 37).[14] Gaining rights to some titles, he foundedFrederick Warne & Co. in 1865, which became known for itsBeatrix Potter books.[15] In July 1865, George Routledge's sonEdmund Routledge became a partner, and the firm becameGeorge Routledge & Sons.[16]
By 1899, the company was running close tobankruptcy. Following a successful restructuring in 1902 by scientistSir William Crookes, bankerArthur Ellis Franklin,William Swan Sonnenschein as managing director, and others, however, it was able to recover and began to acquire and merge with other publishing companies including J. C. Nimmo Ltd. in 1903. In 1912, the company took over the management ofKegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., the descendant of companies founded byCharles Kegan Paul, Alexander Chenevix Trench,Nicholas Trübner, and George Redway.[17]
These early 20th-century acquisitions brought with them lists of notable scholarly titles, and from 1912 onward, the company became increasingly concentrated in the academic and scholarly publishing business under the imprint "Kegan Paul Trench Trubner", as well as reference, fiction and mysticism. In 1947, George Routledge and Sons finally merged with Kegan Paul Trench Trubner (theumlaut had been quietly dropped in theFirst World War) under the name ofRoutledge & Kegan Paul.[18] UsingC. K. Ogden and laterKarl Mannheim as advisers the company was soon particularly known for its titles inphilosophy,psychology and thesocial sciences.
In 1985, Routledge & Kegan Paul joined withAssociated Book Publishers (ABP),[19] which was later acquired byInternational Thomson in 1987. Under Thomson's ownership, Routledge's name and operations were retained, with the additions of backlists fromMethuen,Tavistock Publications,Croom Helm andUnwin Hyman.[20] In 1996, amanagement buyout financed by the Europeanprivate equity firmCinven saw Routledge operating as an independent company once again. In 1997, Cinven acquired journals publisher Carfax and book publisher Spon.[21] In 1998, Cinven and Routledge's directors accepted a deal for Routledge's acquisition byTaylor & Francis Group (T&F), with the Routledge name being retained as an imprint and subdivision.[22][6]
In 2004, T&F became a division withinInforma plc after a merger. Routledge continues as a primary publishing unit and imprint within Informa's 'academic publishing' division, publishing academichumanities andsocial science books, journals, reference works and digital products. Routledge has grown considerably as a result oforganic growth and acquisitions of other publishing companies and other publishers' titles by its parent company.[23][24][25] Humanities and social sciences titles acquired by T&F from other publishers arerebranded under the Routledgeimprint.[24]
Routledge is a signatory of theSDG Publishers Compact,[26][27] and has taken steps to support the achievement of theSustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These include achieving CarbonNeutral publication certification for their print books and journals, under the Natural Capital Partners' CarbonNeutral Protocol.[28]
Routledge has been criticised for a pricing structure which "will limit readership to the privileged few", as opposed to options foropen access offered byDOAJ,Unpaywall, andDOAB.[32]
Many of Routledge'sreference works are published in print and electronic formats as Routledge Handbooks and have their own dedicated website: Routledge Handbooks Online.[37] The company also publishes several online encyclopedias and collections of digital content such asRoutledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy,[33]Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism,[38] Routledge Performance Archive,[39] and South Asia Archive.[40]
Routledge Worlds series consisted of 66 books as of July 2023, which the publisher described as "magisterial surveys of key historical epochs".[41] Included in the series areThe Sikh World,The Pentecostal World, published in 2023,The Quaker World,The Ancient Israelite World, andThe Sámi World published in 2022.[41]
^Upton, Clive; Kretzschmar, William A. Jr. (2017).The Routledge Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English (2nd ed.). Routledge. p. 1164.ISBN978-1-138-12566-7.
^"Routledge, George".Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 49.Archived from the original on 14 September 2015. Retrieved10 November 2015 – via Wikisource.
^Krygier, John (December 2017)."Republic of Letters". A Series of Series. Ohio Wesleyan University.Archived from the original on 13 April 2019. Retrieved10 August 2019.
Whipp, Richard (1992). "Human Resource Management, Competition and Strategy: Some Productive Tensions". In Paul Blyton; Peter Turnbull (eds.).Reassessing Human Resource Management. London:SAGE Publications. pp. 33–55.ISBN0-8039-8697-1.OCLC28325927.
Archives of George Routledge & Company 1853–1902, Chadwyck-Healey Ltd, 1973. 6 reels of microfilm and printed index. (Available from ProQuest)
Archives of Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Henry S. King 1858–1912, Chadwyck-Healey Ltd,1973. 27 reels of microfilm with index on microfiche. (Available from Proquest)
