Allison & Busby
British publishing house established in 1967
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Allison & Busby (A & B) is a publishing house based in London established by Clive Allison and Margaret Busby in 1967.[3][4][5]
| Founded | 1967 |
|---|---|
| Founders | Clive Allison; Margaret Busby |
| Country of origin | England |
| Headquarters location | London |
| Distribution |
|
| Key people | Susie Dunlop (Publishing Director) |
| Publication types | Books |
| Official website | www |
Early years
In 1965, Clive Allison (15 June 1944–25 July 2011)[3] and Margaret Busby (born 1944) met at a party in Bayswater when both were undergraduates;[4] he was President of the Oxford Poetry Society and she the editor of a literary magazine at London University.[5] Busby later remembered, "[a]s the party ended, we continued talking and walking late into the night, and by the time we parted company had already decided on a course of action that would shape the rest of our lives: we would start a publishing house to produce poetry, not in the expensive elitist hardback volumes in which it traditionally appeared, but as cheap paperbacks that even people like us could afford."[5]
Two years later, in May 1967, Allison & Busby was launched. At the time Busby was the UK's youngest and the first black woman publisher.[6] In 1969, they set up office in a friend's flat in Soho; the first book published after that date was The Spook Who Sat by the Door by the African-American author Sam Greenlee, which was rejected by numerous publishers in both the US and UK.[3] Allison's then-wife Lyn van der Riet also worked for the company in the ensuing years, as did Lavinia Greenlaw, who went on to become a respected poet and novelist.[3]
Since 1987
The company was acquired by W. H. Allen Ltd in 1987, was subsequently part of Virgin Publishing,[7] and has since "evolved and thrived under various independent managers",[8] including Peter Day and David Shelley.[9] Margaret Busby left the company in 1987;[10][11] Clive Allison stayed on for several more years.[3] A & B is now owned by Spanish publisher Javier Moll's Editorial Prensa Ibérica.[12]