Records of Chatto & Windus Ltd
The firm that became Chatto & Windus in 1873 originated in the 1850s from the bookselling business of John Camden Hotten. In 1946 it acquired the Hogarth Press and in 1969 merged with Jonathan Cape, all three imprints being retained, as was Bodley Head when it joined the firm in 1973. In 1987 the group was purchased by Random House. English and American literature were the strengths of the list.
The collection consists of letter books and contracts from the 1860s, production ledgers from the 1870s and reviews from the 1900s. The early correspondence files were lost when they were sent for salvage in 1915 to help the war effort but are continuous from then until the 1990s. In addition there are publicity, production and some artwork files. Some material comes from the subsidiary firms John Camden Hotten, Saunders Otley & Co., Sussex University Press and Christophers.
Readers will need the written permission of Random House publishers before consulting material in this collection.
More information
- All 7500 correspondence files have been catalogued on Unicorn
- Handlists of other parts of the collection and a card index of addressees in the letter books are available at the Special Collections Service
- Manuscript number MS 2444