Creator History
Authored By: Nicola Wilson
Edited By: Claire Battershill
The Hogarth Press was founded by Leonard Woolf and Virginia Woolf in March 1917 in their own home: Hogarth House in Richmond, Surrey. Its origins were multifarious, part hobby, part creative and artistic enterprise and reflected the Woolfs' needs during the pressures of wartime to find some engaging relief from the strains of literary, journalistic and political activities. In his autobiography, Leonard draws attention to his concerns about Virginia's mental health, "It struck me that it would be a good thing if Virginia had a manual occupation of this kind which, in say the afternoons, would take her mind completely off her work", (Beginning, 233). Both were excited about the creative potentialities and artistic licence of self-publishing. "We are thinking of starting a printing press, for all our friends stories. Don't you think it's a good idea?" wrote Virginia to Lady Robert Cecil in October 1916 (Letters 2:120).
The Woolfs spent a hard-wrought £20 on some Caslon Old Face type and their first small printing press, an Excelsior Company platen-jobber table-top press, which was housed initially on the dining room table. It was moved to the basement when a larger Minerva platen printing press was purchased in 1921. Teaching themselves the rudiments of printing, they hand-set and printed many of their early works including 'Two Stories' (1917) by Leonard and Virginia Woolf (their first book publication), Katherine Mansfield's 'Prelude' (1918), T. S. Eliot's 'Poems' (1919) and Hope Mirrlees's 'Paris: a Poem' (1919). Sales and distribution were initially through advertisement and word of mouth; between 1919-23 sales were organised by subscription (subscribers deposited £1 and received all publications; subscribers ordered and paid for only specific works). By March 1924, when the Woolfs moved from Richmond back into Bloomsbury taking up residence in 52 Tavistock Square, with the press again in the basement they had hand set and printed eighteen books and published eighteen others using commercial printers.
In addition to its close association with Bloomsbury, the Hogarth Press also published a diverse list of international writers, including twenty-nine translations from Russian, German, and Italian between the two world wars. It was at the heart of a broad and deliberative push to reshape the publishing landscape of interwar Britain, and produced seminal texts including works by Nancy Cunard, Henry Green, Christopher Isherwood, the colonial novels of William Plomer and Laurens van der Post, and the English translations of Sigmund Freud. It also championed a wide selection of otherwise popular, middlebrow writers, educational and political tracts, children's literature, and medical and self-help manuals. In the 1930s, it worked closely with Hugh Walpole's Book Society. Three Hogarth titles were Book Society Choices: Vita Sackville-West's 'The Edwardians' (1930), William Plomer's 'The Case is Altered' (1932) and Virginia Woolf's own 'Flush' (1933).
Employees, press assistants and office managers during the time of the Woolfs' stewardship include Ralph Partridge (assistant, August 1920-March 1922), Marjorie Thomson Joad (assistant, 1923-5), Dadie Rylands (July- December 1924), Angus Davidson (assistant, 1924-7), Bernadette Murphy (manager, Feb-July 1925), Mrs Cartwright (manager, 1925-30), Winifred Holtby (1927-8), Alice Ritchie (part-time traveller, 1928-37), Peggy Belsher (assistant, 1928-35), Richard Kennedy (assistant, 1928-30), John Lehmann (1931-2, partner April 1938-1946), Scott Johnson (manager, Jan 1932-Feb 1933), Margaret West (March 1933-Jan 1937), Barbara Hepworth (first full-time salaried traveller 1937), Dorothy Lange (manager, Feb 1937-May 1938), Norah Nicholls (manager, May 1938-1940), Aline Burch.
Disagreements between Leonard Woolf and John Lehmann eventually led to Woolf buying Lehmann out by selling Lehmann's half share to Chatto & Windus. The Hogarth Press then became a subsidiary of Chatto & Windus and was eventually bought by Random House UK. In 2012, Random House reactivated the Hogarth Press as a fiction publisher for new and contemporary talent. http://crownpublishing.com/imprint/hogarth/
Archives and papers
University of Reading Special Collections, Archives of the Hogarth Press
https://www.reading.ac.uk/special-collections/collections/sc-hogarth.aspx
E. J. Pratt Library at Victoria College in the University of Toronto, Bloomsbury Group and Hogarth Press http://library.vicu.utoronto.ca/collections/special_collections/bloomsbury_group/
University of Sussex, Leonard Woolf Papers
http://www.thekeep.info/collections/getrecord/GB181_SxMs-13
Washington State University, The Library of Leonard and Virginia Woolf
http://ntserver1.wsulibs.wsu.edu/masc/onlinebooks/woolflibrary/woolflibraryonline.htm
The University of Alberta, Bruce Peel Special Collections, Hogarth Press Publications
https://bpsc.library.ualberta.ca/collections/hogarth-press-publications
Scope and Content
Pages unnumbered.
Includes adverts for the following titles:
Abraham, Karl: Selected papers;
Abraham, Karl: Clinical papers and essays on psycho-analysis;
Adeney, Noel: No coward soul;
Aldous, Allan: The tendrills in Australia;
Allen, Johannes: Young love;
Anderson, Patrick: First steps in Greece;
Anon.: St Anthony's papers;
Arnold, Percy: Cyprus challenge;
Aspinall-Oglander, Cecil: Roger Keyes;
Aspinall-Oglander, Cecil: Freshly remembered;
Balint, Michael: Primary love and psycho-analytic technique;
Balint, Michael: Problems of human pleasure and behaviour;
Balint, Michael: Thrills and regressions;
Barker, A L: Apology for a hero;
Barker, A L: Novelette;
Barker, Ralph: The last blue mountain;
Beer, John: Coleridge the visionary;
Beloff, Max: Europe and the Europeans;
Bewley, Marius: The eccentric design;
Bloomfield, Anthony: Russian roulette;
Bloomfield, Anthony: The delinquents;
Bree, Germaine: Marcel Proust and deliverance from time;
Bree, Germaine & Guiton, Margaret: An age of fiction;
Breuer, Josef & Freud, Sigmund & Strachey, James (translator) & Strachey, Alix (translator): Studies on hysteria;
Brierley, Majorie: Trends in psycho-analysis;
Brophy, John: The nimble rabbit;
Brophy, John: The day they robbed the bank of England;
Brown, George Mackay: Loaves and fishes;
Brysson-Morrison, N: The winnowing years;
Buchan, Alastair: The spare chancellor;
Buckley, Peter: Jan of Holland;
Buckley, Peter: Michel of Switzerland;
Buckley, Vincent: Poetry and morality;
Buckmaster, Celia: Village story;
Buckmaster, Celia: Family ties;
Busch, Fritz: Pages from a musician's life;
Butler, E M: Daylight in a dream;
Butler, E M: Silver wings;
Butler, E M: Heinrich Heine;
Byron, James: Or be he dead;
Cameron, Norman: The collected poems;
Campbell, David: Speak with the sun;
Carstairs, G Morris: The twice born;
Cavafy, Constantine: Poems;
Chapman, F Spencer: The jungle is neutral;
Chase, Richard: Infidelity;
Chase, Richard: The honeymoon and the religious man;
Clostermann, Pierre: The big show;
Croome, Honor: The forgotten place;
Davey, Jocelyn: The naked villany;
Deutsch, H: Psycho-analysis of the neuroses;
Devas, Nicolette: Bonfire;
Engle, Anita: The Nili spies;
Fairbrother, Nan: Children in the house;
Fairbrother, Nan: Men and gardens;
Faulkner, William: Requiem for a nun;
Faulkner, William: The town;
Faulkner, William: Uncle Willy;
Faulkner, William: The hamlet;
Faulkner, William: Collected stories;
Fenner, Phyllis R (editor): Horses, horses, horses;
Fenner, Phyllis R (editor): Cowboys, cowboys, cowboys;
Ferenczi, Sandor: Further contributions to the theory and technique of psycho-analysis;
Ferenczi, Sandor: First contributions to psycho-analysis;
Ferenczi, Sandor: Final contributions to the problems and methods of psycho-analysis;
Finlay, Ian: Scottish gold and silver work;
Fliess, Robert: The psycho-analytical reader;
Flugel, J C: The psycho-analytic study of the family;
Flugel, J C: The psychology of clothes;
Forster, E M: Lionel Trilling;
Frank, Elizabeth: Margot Fonteyn;
Freud, Anna: The ego and the mechanisms of defence;
Freud, Sigmund: Collected papers, vol. 5;
Freud, Sigmund: New introductory lectures;
Freud, Sigmund: Collected papers, Vols. 1 to 4;
Freud, Sigmund: Moses and monotheism;
Freud, Sigmund: Beyond the pleasure-principle;
Freud, Sigmund: On dreams;
Fry, Roger: Cezanne;
George, Henry: Progress and poverty;
Ginzburg, Natalia: The road to the city;
Green, Henry: Nothing;
Green, Henry: Back;
Green, Henry: Caught;
Green, Henry: Concluding;
Green, Henry: Living;
Green, Henry: Loving;
Green, Henry: Party going;
Green, Henry: Doting;
Green, Henry: Pack my bag;
Greenacre, Phyllis: Trauma growth and personality;
Grierson, Edward: Stormbird;
Grierson, J M: The captain general;
Hampshire, Stuart: Thought and action;
Hanson, Lawrence & Hanson, Elizabeth: Verlaine;
Hardy, Evelyn: Thomas Hardy's notebooks;
Hardy, Evelyn (editor): In long remembrance;
Harling, Robert: The endess colonnade;
Hawkes, Jacquetta: Providence island;
Henley, Dorothy: Rosalind Howard, countess of Carlisle;
Heriot, Angus: The French in Italy 1796-99;
Hildick, E W: Jim Starling and the agency;
Hill, Pamela: Here lies Margot;
Himmelfarb, Gertrude: Darwin and the Darwinian revolution;
Holderlin, Friedrich: Selected poems;
Hua, Su: Ancient melodies;
Humana, Charles: The house and the fort;
Humphrey, William: Home from the hill;
Huxley, Aldous: Brave new world revisited;
Huxley, Elspeth: The sorceror's apprentice;
Huxley, Elspeth: Four guineas;
Huxley, Elspeth: A thing to love;
Huxley, Elspeth: Red strangers;
Huxley, Julian: New bottles for new wine;
Isherwood, Christopher: The memorial;
Isherwood, Christopher: Mr. Norris changes trains;
Jesman, Czeslaw: The Russians in Ethiopia;
Johnson: Wing leader;
Johnson, Dr: A holiday hint;
Jones, Arthur Creech (editor): New Fabian colonial essays;
Jones, Ernest: On the nightmare;
Jones, Ernest: Essays in applied psycho-analysis;
Jones, Ernest: The young Freud;
Jones, Ernest: Freud: the years of maturity;
Jones, Ernest: Freud: the last phase;
Jones, Ernest: Free associations;
Jump, Barbara: We never died in winter yet;
Kesson, Jessie: The white bird passes;
Klein, Melanie: The psycho-analysis of children;
Klein, Melanie: Developments in psycho-analysis;
Klein, Melanie & Riviere, Joan: Love, hate & reparation;
Knights, L C: Some Shakespearean themes;
Kretschmer, Ernst & Strauss, E B (translator): A text-book of medical psychology;
le Pan, Douglas: The wounded prince;
Lee, Laurie: A rose for winter;
Lee, Laurie: Cider with Rosie;
Leech, Clifford: John Webster: a critical study;
Lewin, Bertram D: The psycho-analysis of elation;
Lewis, C Day: Collected poems, 1929-1936;
Lewis, C Day: The aeneid of Virgil;
Loudan, Jack: O rare Amanda;
Lucas, F L: Tragedy;
MacCaig, Norman: Riding lights;
MacCaig, Norman: The Sinai sort;
Mackenzie, Compton: Thin ice;
Mackenzie, Compton: The lunatic republic;
Marotta, Guiseppe: Neapolitan gold;
Marr-Johnson, Diana: Goodnight pelican;
Mathiot, Andre: The British political system;
Matthews, Patrick (editor): The pursuit of moths and butterflies;
McKitterick, T E M (editor) & Younger, Kenneth (editor): Fabian international essays;
Meeker, Oden: Report on Africa;
Menen, Aubrey: The fig tree;
Mewburn, Martin: The garden;
Mewburn, Martin: I was a stranger;
Mittelholzer, Edgar: A morning at the office;
Montgomerie, N & Montgomerie, W: The well at the world's end;
Morrison, N Brysson: The hidden fairing;
Morrison, N Brysson: The following wind;
Morrison, N Brysson: The other traveller;
Mucha, Jiri: Scorched crop;
Muir, Edwin: An autobiography;
Murdoch, Iris: The bell;
Oliver, Roland: Sir Harry Johnston and the scramble for Africa;
Olivia: Olivia;
Painter, George D: Marcel Proust;
Partridge, Edward B: The broken compass;
Proust, Marcel: Remembrance of things past;
Pryce, Roy: The Italian local elections 1956;
Putnam, J J: Addresses on psycho-analysis;
Reik, Theodore: Ritual;
Rey, H A: Zozo gets a medal;
Rickman, John: Selected contributions to psycho-analysis;
Rilke, R M: Requiem and other poems;
Rilke, R M: The notebook of Malte Laurids Brigge;
Rilke, R M: Duino elegies;
Rilke, R M: Sonnets to Orpheus;
Rilke, R M: From the remains of Count C W;
Rilke, R M: Letters to Benvenuta;
Rilke, R M: Correspondence in versse with Erika Mitterer;
Rilke, R M: Selected prose works;
Rilke, R M: Letters to Frau Gudi Nolke;
Rilke, R M: Poems 1906-1926;
Rilke, R M & von Thurn and Taxis, Princess Marie & Wydenbruck, Nora (translator): Letters;
Robins, Elizabeth: Raymond and I;
Robson, Prof William A (editor): The civil service in Great Britain and France;
Rolfe, Frederick: Don Tarquinio;
Rolfe, Frederick: Nicholas Crabbe;
Rose, Ronald: Living magic;
Rosenberg, E: A company of strangers;
Rosenberg, J & Rosenberg, E: Out brief candle;
Salaman, Esther: The fertile plain;
Sansom, William: The passionate north;
Sansom, William: The face of innocence;
Sansom, William: The body;
Sansom, William: Something terrible, something lovely;
Sansom, William: Three;
Sansom, William: The equilibriad;
Sansom, William: A touch of the sun;
Sansom, William: Pleasures strange and simple;
Sansom, William: The light that went out;
Sansom, William: It was really Charlie's castle;
Sansom, William: A bed of roses;
Sansom, William: Lord love us;
Sansom, William: A contest of ladies;
Sansom, William: The loving eye;
Sansom, William: Among the dahlias;
Sansom, William: The icicle and the sun;
Sansom, William: The cautious heart;
Selsam, Millicent: The plants we eat;
Selsam, Millicent: Things to do with seeds;
Sewell, Elizabeth: The field of nonsense;
Sharpe, Ella Freeman: Collected papers;
Sharpe, Ella Freeman: Dream analysis;
Sharpe, Ella Freeman: Collected papers on psycho-analysis;
Silkin, Jon: The two freedoms;
Smith, John: The dark side of love;
St. Aubyn, Giles: The art of argument;
Stephen, James: Memoirs;
Stephen, Leslie: Men, books and mountains;
Stopes, Marie: Joy and Verity;
Stopes, Marie: Married love;
Stopes, Marie: Birth control today;
Stopes, Marie: Enduring love;
Storry, Richard: The double patriots;
Sutherland, John (editor): Psycho-analysis and contemporary thought;
Tiller, Terence: Reading a medal;
Tillyard, E M W: The metaphysicals and Milton;
Townsend, John Howard: The young devils;
Townsend, Peter (editor): The Cambridge anthology;
van der Post, Laurens: Venture to the interior;
van der Post, Laurens: The face beside the fire;
van der Post, Laurens: In a province;
van der Post, Laurens: Flamingo feather;
van der Post, Laurens: A bar of shadow;
van der Post, Laurens: The dark eye in Africa;
van der Post, Laurens: The lost world of the Kalahari;
Walsh, William: The use of imagination;
Warner, Oliver: A portrait of Lord Nelson;
Webster, John & Lucas, F L (editor): The Duchess of Malfi;
Webster, John & Lucas, F L (editor): The white devil;
Willey, Basil: More nineteenth century studies;
Wisdom, John Oulton: The unconcious origin of Berkeley's philosophy;
Woolf, Leonard: Principia politica;
Woolf, Virginia: The captain's death bed;
Woolf, Virginia: Between the acts;
Woolf, Virginia: A haunted house;
Woolf, Virginia: Three guineas;
Woolf, Virginia: To the lighthouse;
Woolf, Virginia: Orlando;
Woolf, Virginia: Jacob's room;
Woolf, Virginia: The voyage out;
Woolf, Virginia: Night and day;
Woolf, Virginia: Mrs Dalloway;
Woolf, Virginia: The waves;
Woolf, Virginia: A room of one's own;
Woolf, Virginia: Flush;
Woolf, Virginia: The common reader (first series);
Woolf, Virginia: The common reader (second series);
Woolf, Virginia: The years;
Woolf, Virginia: A writer's diary;
Woolf, Virginia: Granite and rainbow;
Woolf, Virginia & Strachey, Lytton: Letters;
Worcester, G R G: The junkman smiles;
Wydenbruck, Nora (translator) & von Thurn and Taxis, Princess Marie: Memoirs of a princess;
Zilboorg, Gregory: The psychology of the criminal act and punishment;
