Hamish Hamilton Limited was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
book publishing house, founded in 1931
eponymAn eponym is the name of a person, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named. One who is referred to as eponymous is someone who gives his or her name to something, e.g...
ously by the half-
ScotA Scot is a member of an ethnic group indigenous to Scotland.Scot may also refer to:People with the given name Scot:* Scot Brantley , American football linebacker* Scot Breithaupt , American cyclist...
half-
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Jamie HamiltonJamie Hamilton was a half-American half-Scot British champion oarsman, who is best remembered today as the founder of the eponymous publishing house Hamish Hamilton Limited....
(
Hamish is the vocative form of the Gaelic 'Seamus' [meaning James],
James the
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
form - which was also his given name, and
Jamie the
diminutiveIn language structure, a diminutive, or diminutive form, is a formation of a word used to convey a slight degree of the root meaning, smallness of the object or quality named, encapsulation, intimacy, or endearment...
form). Confusingly, Jamie Hamilton was often referred to as
Hamish Hamilton. The publishing brand
Hamish Hamilton is presently an
imprintIn the publishing industry, an imprint can refer to two different things:* It can mean a brand name under which a work is published. One single publishing company may have multiple imprints; the different imprints are used by the publisher to market the work to different demographic consumer segments...
of
Penguin BooksPenguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Allen Lane. Lane's idea was to provide quality writing cheaply, for the same price as a packet of cigarettes. He also wanted them to be sold not only in bookshops but in railway stations, general stores and corner shops. Its most emblematic products...
.
Hamish Hamilton Limited originally specialized in fiction, and was responsible for publishing a number of American authors in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
- including J.D.
Hamish Hamilton Limited was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
book publishing house, founded in 1931
eponymAn eponym is the name of a person, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named. One who is referred to as eponymous is someone who gives his or her name to something, e.g...
ously by the half-
ScotA Scot is a member of an ethnic group indigenous to Scotland.Scot may also refer to:People with the given name Scot:* Scot Brantley , American football linebacker* Scot Breithaupt , American cyclist...
half-
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Jamie HamiltonJamie Hamilton was a half-American half-Scot British champion oarsman, who is best remembered today as the founder of the eponymous publishing house Hamish Hamilton Limited....
(
Hamish is the vocative form of the Gaelic 'Seamus' [meaning James],
James the
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
form - which was also his given name, and
Jamie the
diminutiveIn language structure, a diminutive, or diminutive form, is a formation of a word used to convey a slight degree of the root meaning, smallness of the object or quality named, encapsulation, intimacy, or endearment...
form). Confusingly, Jamie Hamilton was often referred to as
Hamish Hamilton. The publishing brand
Hamish Hamilton is presently an
imprintIn the publishing industry, an imprint can refer to two different things:* It can mean a brand name under which a work is published. One single publishing company may have multiple imprints; the different imprints are used by the publisher to market the work to different demographic consumer segments...
of
Penguin BooksPenguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Allen Lane. Lane's idea was to provide quality writing cheaply, for the same price as a packet of cigarettes. He also wanted them to be sold not only in bookshops but in railway stations, general stores and corner shops. Its most emblematic products...
.
Hamish Hamilton Limited originally specialized in fiction, and was responsible for publishing a number of American authors in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
- including J.D. Salinger's
Catcher in the Rye. Hamish Hamilton Law and Hamish Hamilton Medical were started in 1939 but closed during the war. Hamish Hamilton was established in the literary district of
Bloomsbury-Places:*Bloomsbury , related local government unit* Bloomsbury, New Jersey, New Jersey, USA* Bloomsbury , listed on the NRHP in Maryland* Bloomsbury , listed on the NRHP in Virginia-Other:...
and went on to publish a large number of promising British and American authors, a large number of whom were personal friends and acquaintances of Jamie Hamilton.
Jamie Hamilton sold the firm to the Thomson Organisation in 1965, who resold it to
Penguin BooksPenguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Allen Lane. Lane's idea was to provide quality writing cheaply, for the same price as a packet of cigarettes. He also wanted them to be sold not only in bookshops but in railway stations, general stores and corner shops. Its most emblematic products...
in 1986. Hamish Hamilton’s aim remains to publish innovative literary fiction and non-fiction from around the world. Authors include:
Alain de BottonAlain de Botton, is a Swiss writer, television presenter and entrepreneur.His books and television programmes discuss various subjects in a philosophical style with an emphasis on their relevance to everyday life. In August 2008, he was a founding member of a new educational establishment in...
,
Esther FreudEsther Freud is a British novelist. Born in London, she is the daughter of painter Lucian Freud and Bernadine Coverley and is the great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud.-Biography:...
,
Toby LittToby Litt is an English writer, born in Bedford in 1968. He studied at Bedford Modern School, read English at Worcester College, Oxford and studied Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia where he was taught by Malcolm Bradbury....
,
Redmond O'HanlonRedmond O'Hanlon is a British author. He was educated at Marlborough school and then Oxford University. He was elected a member of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History in 1982, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1984 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1993...
,
W. G. SebaldW. G. Maximilian Sebald was a German writer and academic...
,
Zadie SmithZadie Smith is an English novelist. To date she has written three novels. In 2003, she was included on Granta's list of 20 best young authors.-Early life:...
,
William SutcliffeWilliam Sutcliffe is a British novelist.An alumnus of Haberdashers' Aske's School, Sutcliffe started his career with a novel about school life entitled New Boy , which was followed by his best-known work so far, Are You Experienced? , a pre-university gap year novel, in which a group of young...
,
Paul TherouxPaul Edward Theroux is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work is, perhaps, The Great Railway Bazaar , a travelogue about a trip he made by train from the United Kingdom through Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, through South Asia, then South-East Asia, up through...
and
John UpdikeJohn Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic....
.
Hamish Hamilton also publishes an online literary magazine called
Five Dials.
External links