Archives of The Bodley Head Ltd

The publishing firm The Bodley Head was founded in 1887 by Charles Elkin Mathews and John Lane. At various times the company absorbed the firms of Bowes and Bowes Ltd, Hollis and Carter Ltd, Putnams Ltd and Werner Laurie Ltd, some of whose records are included in the collection.

This large collection consists mainly of material relating to Bodley Head publications 1964-1989, including correspondence, publicity material, financial records, contracts, royalty statements and reader's reports. There are also authors' contracts and some related correspondence covering the earlier period, most from 1929-1936.

Readers will need the written permission of Random House publishers before consulting material in this collection.

More information

• Around 2000 reader's reports and correspondence files are catalogued on Unicorn
• A handlist of the rest of the collection, with indexes, is available at the Special Collections Service
• A full description is available from our online database
• Manuscript number MS 2606