Gollancz Science Fiction: A Short History
Gollancz's science fiction and fantasy imprint, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2011, is the longest-established such publishing line in the UK. Gollancz was originally an independent publisher, founded in 1928 by Victor Gollancz (1893-1967), who was succeeded by his daughter Livia (1920- ). Gollancz operated for many years from offices in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, and its early strength was in political and non-fiction writing.
However, in 1961, Gollancz's editor Hilary Rubinstein originated the science fiction list by publishing Kingsley Amis's New Maps of Hell, a survey of the sf scene based on lectures given by Amis at Princeton University. On the strength of Amis's recommendation, the company soon published J G Ballard's The Drowned World (1962). This novel, the first to make Ballard's name, set the stage for a much more ambitious programme. Soon, Gollancz was publishing more than 20 sf hardcovers per year, and their distinctive yellow jackets marked out the company's books in many libraries and collections. Authors included both Americans such as Robert Heinlein and Ursula Le Guin, and British authors such as Arthur C Clarke and Harry Harrison. As fantasy grew in popularity, the list – originally oriented mostly towards sf – became a home for authors such as Terry Pratchett and Peter Dickinson as well. 1983-4 was a particularly rich time for Gollancz: its publications included Robert Holdstock's World Fantasy Award-winning Mythago Wood, Mary Gentle's best-selling Golden Witchbreed, and the world first hardcover of William Gibson's seminal cyberpunk novel Neuromancer. In the 1980s, Gollancz began moving fully into paperback as well as hardback sf publishing, with a “Classic SF” reprint line and a mass-market “VGSF” imprint.
Following Hilary Rubinstein, the sf imprint was managed successively by John Bush, Malcolm Edwards, and – until his tragically early death in 1996 – Richard Evans. Livia Gollancz sold the company to Houghton Mifflin in 1989, and it was sold on by them to the Cassell Group in 1992. Finally, the Gollancz imprint was bought by the Orion Group (part of Hachette) in 1998, where it has remained ever since under the direction of Edwards, Orion's Deputy CEO.
In 1999, Gollancz launched a series of classic reprints as “SF Masterworks” – a series that now runs to almost 100 titles. It was joined in 2000 by a set of “Fantasy Masterworks” including such seminal works as Michael Moorcock's Elric, Hope Mirrlees's Lud-in-the-Mist, and John Crowley's Little, Big. At the same time, the company continued publishing works of contemporary sf and fantasy to both critical and commercial acclaim: between 2000 and 2009, five of the ten winners of the Arthur C Clarke Award were first published in the UK by Gollancz.
