Singel Uitgeverijen is a Dutch publishing group, headquartered inAmsterdam. Its subsidiaries are Nijgh & Van Ditmar,Querido Verlag, De Arbeiderspers, Athenaeum, Polak & Van Gennep, De Geus, and Volt. Books are also published directly by Singel Uitgeverijen.
De Arbeiderspers (Dutch for "The Workers' Press") is a Dutch publishing company, started in 1929 as asocialist enterprise that combined the publishing firm N.V. Ontwikkeling and the DutchSocial Democratic Workers' Party newspaperHet Volk. It later merged into the Weekbladpersgroep, which also included publishing companiesDe Bezige Bij andQuerido.[2] Until well into the 1960s, the press was known as a "socialist bastion", and until Martin Ros joined in 1964, literature was regarded with suspicion—the press published regional novels by authors such asHerman de Man andA.M. de Jong [nl].
Martin Ros [nl], a well-read and well-spoken man, was hired specifically to "stir the pot". One of his first acquisitions wasGerrit Komrij, at the time a young poet with formalist, not socialist, tendencies. Ros was also responsible, with then-director Johan Veeninga, for thePrivé-domein series, containingmemoirs andautobiographies. The series was inspired by a similar series of ego documents by Editions du Cap, calledDomaine privé, whose title was borrowed as well. The first volumes (containing a memoir byMary McCarthy and a volume of titillating diary entries byPaul Léautaud) were published in 1966, and in forty-five years almost three hundred books appeared in the series. The "golden years" of the series were the 1980s, when its editors were Martin Ros, Theo Sontrop, and Emile Brugman.[3]
Theo Sontrop [nl] joined the company in 1972.[3] Until 1991, Sontrop was the managing director. Ronald Dietz succeeded him, and during his tenure, the press lost the high-profile writersJeroen Brouwers andKristien Hemmerechts.[4] Martin Ros resigned in 1997.[5] When in 2000Gerrit Komrij, one of the best-known Dutch writers, came under contract withDe Bezige Bij, pressure on Dietz increased and he resigned from his position. Rob Haans became interim director.[2]
Brave New Books is Singel's platform for self-publication, in collaboration with the webshopBol.com.
Nijgh & Van Ditmar is a Dutchpublishing company, founded in 1837 inRotterdam by Henricus Nijgh, who originally started a bookstore but quickly discovered that the publishing business was profitable as well. Nijgh was also the founder, in 1843, of theRotterdamsch staats-, handels-, nieuws- en advertentieblad, which later became theNieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant. In 1864 he teamed up with Willem Nicolaas Josua van Ditmar, whose last name was added to the firm's name in 1870.[6] In 2014 Nijgh & Van Ditmar was acquired by Singel Uitgeverijen.
Conserve was a publishing house (Dutch: "Uitgeverij Conserve") established as in 1983 inSchoorl by Kees de Bakker. The company specialised in publishinghistorical novels.Cynthia McLeod was one of the authors published by Conserve. Publications includeLord of Formosa. Conserve merged into Singel on 1 January 2019.[7] At Singel, Conserve books are published as the imprints De Geus-Conserve and Volt-Conserve.
Uitgeverij Conserve gaat per 1 januari over naar Singel Uitgeverijen in Amsterdam. Dat maakte oprichter Kees de Bakker bekend.