citations for verification . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . january 2016 learn how and when to remove this template message the bodley head parent company random house founded 1887 ; 129 years ago 1887 founder john lane and elkin mathews country of origin united kingdom headquarters location london publication types books official website www.bodleyhead.co.uk the bodley head is an english publishing house founded in 1887 and existing as an independent entity until the 1970s . the name was used as an imprint of random house children s books from 1987 to 2008 . in april 2008 it was revived as an adult non fiction imprint within random house s ccv division . contents 1 history 2 relaunch 3 see also 4 bibliography 5 references 6 external links history edit originally john lane and elkin mathews the bodley head was a partnership set up in 1887 by john lane 1854 1925 and elkin mathews 1851 1921 to trade in antiquarian books in london . it took its name from a bust of sir thomas bodley the eponymist of the bodleian library in oxford above the shop door . lane and matthews began in 1894 to publish works of stylish decadence including the notorious literary periodical the yellow book . also notable amongst bodley head s pre great war books were the two volume sets foundations of the nineteenth century 1910 and later editions selling over fifty thousand copies and immanuel kant both by houston stewart chamberlain . herbert george jenkins was a manager at the firm during the first decade of the twentieth century before leaving to set up his own publishing house in 1912 . 1 the bodley head became a private company in 1921 . in 1926 it published the book of bodley head verse an anthology edited by j. b. priestley . the firm published some mainstream popular authors such as arnold bennett and agatha christie but ran into financial difficulties . it continued after 1936 backed by a consortium of allen & unwin jonathan cape and j. m. dent . allen lane john lane s nephew who had inherited control finally left to found penguin books . in the 1930s the bodley head was used as a series title by penguin books . for example a short history of the world by h.g. wells appeared in the series in 1936 . the firm was bought in 1957 by ansbacher & co. headed by max reinhardt . during this period bodley head published the work of authors such as george bernard shaw graham greene charles chaplin william trevor maurice sendak muriel spark alexander solzhenitsyn sam haskins and alistair cooke . max reinhardt was also responsible for the expansion of one of the outstanding children s books lists in modern publishing . the imprint was still important in the 1970s when it was drawn into the jonathan cape chatto and windus group . the firm was sold to random house in 1987 who published children s books under the bodley head name until 2008 . the archives of the bodley head ltd are kept at reading university . 2 relaunch edit the bodley head imprint was relaunched by random house as an adult imprint in april 2008 . its two principal strands are stated to be books of scholarship in both the humanities and sciences and books which contribute to the intellectual and cultural climate of our times . 3 see also edit children s literature portal category the bodley head books max reinhardt bibliography edit stetz margaret ; lasner mark samuels 1990 . england in the 1890s literary publishing at the bodley head . georgetown univ press . isbn 0 87840 509 7 . j w lambert and michael ratcliffe the bodley head 1887 1987 the story of john lane allen lane unwin and max reinhardt and their links with bodley head . isbn 0 370 30949 9 . references edit obituaries mr herbert jenkins . the times . 9 june 1923 . p. 12 . retrieved 26 march 2012 . subscription required for online access archives of the bodley head ltd university of reading . reading.ac.uk . retrieved 2013 09 29 . bodley head . vintage books . retrieved 2013 09 29 . external links edit official website archives of the bodley head ltd at reading university v t e penguin random house random house usa crown crown broadway harmony hogarth three rivers ten speed watson guptill knopf doubleday knopf doubleday everyman s library us pantheon schocken vintage random house ballantine bantam dell del rey dial modern library spectra villard children s beginner books golden information books on tape fodor s living language the princeton review prima games uk cornerstone hutchinson random house william heinemann ebury bbc books ebury del rey fodor s rider virgin books 90 % transworld bantam doubleday vintage publishing the bodley head chatto & windus harvill secker jonathan cape vintage canada mcclelland & stewart douglas gibson books tundra books new canadian library other companhia das letras 45 % penguin random house grupo editorial alfaguara penguin group uk dorling kindersley hamish hamilton ladybird penguin penguin classics puffin rough guides viking warne us alpha author solutions authorhouse iuniverse trafford xlibris dutton penguin putnam riverhead sentinel tarcher viking berkley publishing group ace berkley new american library jove plume roc children s dial young readers dutton children s firebird g. p. putnam s sons grosset & dunlap philomel price stern sloan puffin warne parents bertelsmann pearson plc retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title the bodley head & oldid 729352147 categories book publishing companies of the united kingdomrandom housepublishing companies established in 18871887 establishments in the united kingdomhidden categories articles needing additional references from january 2016all articles needing additional references navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages fran aisitaliano edit links this page was last modified on 11 july 2016 at 16 35 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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