founded 2005 country of origin united kingdom headquarters location london publication types books official website www.vintage books.co.uk harvill secker is a british publishing company formed in 2005 from the merger of secker & warburg and the harvill press . contents 1 history 1.1 secker & warburg 1.2 harvill press 2 references 3 external links history edit secker & warburg edit secker & warburg was formed in 1935 from a takeover of martin secker which was in receivership by fredric warburg and roger senhouse . the firm became renowned for its political stance being both anti fascist and anti communist a position that put them at loggerheads with the ethos of many intellectuals of the time . citation needed when george orwell parted company with communist party sympathizer victor gollancz over his editing of the road to wigan pier 1937 he took his next book homage to catalonia to secker & warburg who published it in 1938 . they also published after 18 months of rejections and setbacks animal farm 1945 and orwell s subsequent books . 1 orwell and warburg later became intimate friends . secker & warburg published other books by key figures of the anti stalinist left such as c. l. r. james 2 rudolf rocker and boris souvarine 3 as well as works by lewis mumford . in february 1941 the company launched a series of long pamphlets or short books called searchlight books edited by george orwell and t. r. fyvel . 4 the series was originally planned to include 17 books but was discontinued after the publication of 10 when bombing destroyed paper stocks . with its financial position devastated by paper shortages during and after the war secker & warburg were forced to join the heinemann group of publishers in 1951 . during the 1950s and 1960s secker & warburg published the works of among others simone de beauvoir colette j. m. coetzee alberto moravia g nter grass angus wilson melvyn bragg and julian gloag as well as the british buddhist lobsang rampa . heinemann was purchased by the octopus publishing group in 1985 ; octopus was purchased by reed international now reed elsevier in 1987 . random house bought the adult trade division of reed books in 1997 . tom rosenthal 1935 2014 chairman of the institute of contemporary arts was head of secker & warburg from 1971 to 1984 . 5 6 harvill press edit the harvill press was founded in 1946 by manya harari and marjorie villiers . the imprint was later acquired by the glasgow based publishing firm william collins and sons which in 1989 merged with the american publishers harper & row to form harpercollins . in 1996 harvill press became independent following a management buyout . the firm was bought by random house in 2002 and was merged with secker & warburg in 2005 to become harvill secker . 7 references edit orwell sonia and ian angus eds the collected essays journalism and letters of george orwell volume 4 in front of your nose 1945 1950 . penguin 1970 . al richardson introduction to world revolution 1917 1936 by c.l.r. james . marxists.org . harvard university library archived september 1 2006 at the wayback machine . david r. costello april 1989 . searchlight books and the quest for a people s war 1941 42 . journal of contemporary history . 24 2 257 276 . doi 10.1177 002200948902400204 . jstor 260823 . tom rosenthal 24 july 1998 . ... in black white red and green george orwell . times higher education . tom rosenthal obituary the telegraph 22 january 2014 . secker and harvill to merge . booktrade.info . 13 february 2004 . external links edit official website 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 harvill secker & oldid 719210949 categories bertelsmann subsidiariesbook publishing companies of the united kingdomcompanies established in 1936george orwellrandom househidden categories articles with wayback machine linksall articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from march 2009 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 portugu s edit links this page was last modified on 8 may 2016 at 08 50 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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