Records of George Allen & Unwin Ltd

Archives Hub: Records of George Allen & Unwin Ltd

Records of George Allen & Unwin Ltd

Reference: GB 0006 RUL MS 3282
Title: Records of George Allen & Unwin Ltd
Dates of creation: 1884-1983
Held at: Reading University Library
Extent: Around 1300 boxes, plus over 250 ledgers and other bound volumes.
Name of Creator: George Allen & Unwin Ltd
Level of Description: fonds
Language of Material: eng

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Administrative/Biographical History

The firm of George Allen & Sons began in 1871 as the publisher of John Ruskin, acquiring the publishing branch of Bemrose & Sons in 1909. In 1911 it merged with Swan Sonnenschein to form George Allen & Co. Ltd. Financial difficulties ensued under George Allen's succeeding sons and daughter, and a Receiver for the Debenture Holders was appointed on 2 January 1914. Stanley Unwin, who had previously worked for his uncle T. Fisher Unwin, acquired an interest, and the firm of George Allen & Unwin Ltd was formally registered on 4 August 1914. The following month the company moved from Rathbone Place to 40 Museum Street. There were four original directors: Stanley Unwin, Colonel Philip Hugh Dalbiac, who took care of the authors' accounts; Cecil A. Reynolds, who acted as secretary; and Edgar L. Skinner, who managed the advertising. Unwin controlled all trade matters. In practice most of the work of running the business fell into Unwin's hands, partly because the other three directors were required to perform war work elsewhere. By 1934 he had full control of the business, which he retained until his death in 1968.

Unwin was a Nonconformist and a liberal thinker, and his views were often reflected in the books published by the firm, such as work by Bertrand Russell, J.A. Hobson, L.T. Hobhouse and Ramsay MacDonald. He was keen to introduce foreign works to English readers, and throughout his career published many translations. Allen & Unwin also published books about India and by Indian authors from the 1920s onwards, helping to increase understanding of Indian affairs. In 1928 Unwin purchased the firm of Williams & Norgate, which was then sold to his remaining co-director, E.L. Skinner, as part of the deal which saw Skinner's departure from the firm in 1934. Other acquisitions were the Dublin firm of Maunsell, publisher of the playwright J.M. Synge, and a controlling interest in The Bodley Head, shared with competitors Jonathan Cape and J.M. Dent and finally sold in 1957. The firm survived both wartime paper rationing and the destruction of 1.4 million books in a bombing raid, and towards the end of the war purchased the assets of Elkin Mathews and Marrot, previously noted for belles lettres, and Thomas Murby & Co., the leading geological publisher. Notable post-war successes included The Kon-Tiki Expedition (1950) and The Lord of the Rings (1954-5).

In 1986 Allen & Unwin merged with Bell & Hyman, forming the company Unwin Hyman, which was then purchased by HarperCollins in July 1990. HarperCollins sold the Unwin Hyman academic division to Thomson Books' Routledge division. Routledge was subsequently acquired by the Taylor & Francis Group. Allen & Unwin is still an independent publishing firm in Australia and New Zealand.

Scope and Content

The bulk of the collection consists of around 1300 boxes of correspondence, covering the period 1914-1968 and containing letters from authors, agents, publishers, booksellers, individual book buyers, tax collectors, binders, paper suppliers, advertisers, printers etc.

There are also lists of manuscripts received 1914-1972; a selection of publishing journals and ledgers 1917-1957; around 150 volumes recording payments to authors 1914-1969, with records of stock figures, reader's fees, advertising costs, insurance, warehousing etc.; books of outgoing letters 1914-1920; minutes of directors' meetings 1914-1967; registers of members 1921-1941; stock valuations 1920-1929; stock and sales records 1935-1940; company expense ledgers 1923-1961; records of dividend payments 1938-1970; various salary and wage records 1932-1954; invoice and payment records for shipments to booksellers in South and Central America 1945-1958; documents relating to the formation and operation of the Indian subsidiary company 1966-1974; insurance papers; tax documents 1936-1943; balance sheets 1914-1965; and miscellaneous company papers 1966-1983.

In addition, there some records from associated or subsidiary companies. Material from George Allen & Co. consists of production and promotion records 1904-1914; authors' accounts 1904-1914; directors' minutes 1911-1914; expenditure ledgers 1911-1913; and the register of members 1911-1913. Swan Sonnenschein material includes directors' minutes 1895-1909 and accounts 1884-1903. There are also some files from the firm of Elkin Mathews and Marrot, acquired in 1941. These consist of correspondence, agreements and copyright permissions, chiefly dating from the 1930s. Material from Bemrose & Sons includes a publishing ledger covering the period 1887-1894, and agreements and stock records 1908-1909 relating to the sale of the business to George Allen. Other companies are represented only by one or two documents. These include Headley Bros Ltd, Museum Street Buildings Ltd, Educational Bulletins Ltd, John Lane The Bodley Head Ltd, W.J. Bryce Ltd, Messers Unwin Brothers Ltd, Williams & Norgate Ltd, Book Centre Ltd, and Thomas Murby & Co.

System of Arrangement

In most cases, the original filing order of the records has been retained. The exception is that readers' reports were extracted from the earlier files and added to Allen & Unwin's own later system, in order to create one continuous sequence. The remaining correspondence has been filed alphabetically by author and then chronologically. As a result, letters relating to the publication of a particular book may be found in several different locations.

Administrative Information

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Deposited by the firm of George Allen & Unwin Ltd/Unwin Hyman, 1984-1987.

Access Conditions

Open to all researchers. No reader's ticket is required but an appointment is necessary. Check www.library.rdg.ac.uk/colls/special/archivesaccess for contact details and opening hours.

Further Information

Finding Aids

Records for the correspondence files have been added to the Library's online catalogue at www.unicorn.rdg.ac.uk. A handlist gives details of the rest of the material. Index to the archives of George Allen and Company, 1893-1915 (Chadwyck-Healey, 1974) is a published guide to the microfilm copy of the George Allen & Co. letterbooks.

Related Units of Description

MS 4458 contains papers of Sir Stanley Unwin.

Publication Note

A further description of the collection and information about the cataloguing procedure can be found in Brian Ryder, 'The George Allen & Unwin Collection: Reading University Library' in Publishing history v. 47 (2000), p.67-78.

Archivist's Note

Description prepared by Bridget Andrews, with reference to Stanley Unwin, The Truth About a Publisher (London: Allen & Unwin, 1960).

Access Points

Publishers and publishing -- Great Britain
Unwin, Stanley (1884-1968) Sir Knight Publisher
George Allen & Co, publishers (1893 - 1915)
George Allen & Unwin Ltd, publishers (1914 - 1968)
Swan Sonnenschein & Co, publishers -- (1878 - 1911)
Elkin Mathews and Marrot
Bemrose & Sons Ltd, printers -- (1865 - 1874)

Toys as an agent of change

Historians are very familiar with the idea of the printing press as an agent of change ever since Elizabeth L. Eisenstein's excellent and pivotal works (The printing press as an agent of change : communications and cultural transformations in early-modern Europe (1979) and The printing revolution in early modern Europe (1983)). The printing press spread ideas and values broadly and rapidly among peoples and across continents. The significance of the printing press is unquestionable.

Printed matters as an important form of material culture easily draw the attention of scholars from various disciplines. However, the roles of other dimensions of material cultures as subtle and negligible as toys in everyday life have been considered less relevant in shaping ideas and values. If the literary marketplace has been one of the most popular areas of interests, how toys were marketed to children and their parents? 
If the modern presses shaped the views of the public, how toys were marketed as a means of social control when addressing social issues? If printed matters consolidate conventional ideas and values about gender and profession, how toys as an important aspect of formative learning process shaped the ideas and values, however new or old, of the kids? In a way, are toys one of the most conservative agents which rarely challenge stereotypes of gender and profession?

Using the case of the giant department store Sears in the U.S., Wesley A. Asherbranner's dissertation "Toys as an agent of change: a historicalsurvey of the Sears Christmas Wish Book, 1940-2000" (unpublished M.A. dissertation, University of Regina, 2003) tells us the answers.

Toys reinforce a form of socialization that disciplines children into appropriate gender roles. This research proceeds via historical observation of how each individual period assigned toys selections along gender and coincidentally, racially identifiable lines. 

Consequently, the thesis addresses a number of questions, namely, do the choices of toys vary by generations and what role did the marketers have on how toys were marketed through the catalogues. If toy selections are based along gender roles, how is this strategy manifested within the catalogues? 

Finally,what social changes affected which toys were marketed and did they change from year to year, decade to decade? In other words, to what degree did the toy companies and/or the toy marketers lead or follow these social changes?

記《漢書 ‧ 魏晉丙吉傳》

《漢書 ‧ 魏相傳》：「徒平陵。少學《易》，為群卒史，舉賢良，以對策高第，為茂陵令。（頁3133）‧‧‧‧‧‧詔相給事中，皆從其議。‧‧‧‧‧‧及霍氏怨相，又憚之，謀矯太后詔，先召斬丞相，然後廢天子。事發覺，伏誅。宣帝始親萬機，厲精為治，練羣臣，核名實，而相總領眾職，甚稱上意。（頁3135）‧‧‧‧‧‧明《易經》，有師法（頁3137）‧‧‧‧‧‧又數表采《易陰陽》及《明堂月令》奏之（頁3139）‧‧‧‧‧‧願陛下選明經通知陰陽者四人，各主一時。（頁3140）」

《漢書 ‧ 丙吉傳》：「武帝末，巫蠱事起，吉以故廷尉監徵，詔治巫蠱郡邸獄‧‧‧‧‧‧又心知太子無事實，重哀曾孫無辜，吉擇謹厚女徒，令保養曾孫，置閒燥處。吉治巫蠱事，連歲不決。（頁3142）‧‧‧‧‧‧［宣帝］至今十八九矣，通經術，有美材，行安而節和。（頁3143）‧‧‧‧‧‧吉本起獄法小吏，後學《詩》、《禮》，皆通大義。及居相位，上寬大，好禮讓。（頁3145）」

贊曰：‧‧‧‧‧‧孝宣中興，丙、魏有聲。是時黜陟有序，眾職修理，公卿多稱其位，海內興於禮讓。覽其行事，豈虛虖哉！（頁3151）

再讀大前研一

大前研一：《再起動：職場絶對生存手冊》（台北：天下遠見，2009，陳光棻，王俞惠譯）和《專業 ：你的唯一生存之道》（台北：天下遠見，2009，呂美女譯）。

《再起動》延續他對世界經濟的二分法分析：舊大陸和新大陸，相應於舊經濟和新經濟；以網路的出現分界，舊大陸是我們熟悉的經濟結構，以日本為例，以齊頭平等和年功序列為核心，容易墨守成規；新大陸「以網路空間為經濟活動中心」，「是一種金錢與資訊都跨越國境的無國界經濟」，跟隨全球化的大潮流，要日本中層上班族將目光放在全世界。

大前這本寫給三十五至五十歲日本上班族的商業手冊，不少內容已見於早前的著作，如時間管理，學習英語，遷出市中心居住等，沒有太多新鮮觀點，多是大前獨特歷練的分享。

最有趣的是建議後團塊年代，務必好好地研究比自己年長或年輕十五歲的人。即使說，三十五歲的人，應該研究五十歲的人，以為警惕；研究二十歲的人，以為學習。現在四十歲以上的人非常善於偽裝。（頁159）陽奉陰違，裝勤力，善偷懶，上有政策，下有對策的思維。

後團塊年代（尤指工作狂）對自己工作興趣以外的事物有心理阻隔，不感興趣，拒絕認知，遑論學習。大前也提出年輕人都是在「reset文化」的電玩世界成長，工作（遊戲）不滿意就離開（reset）。不過，也正因他們沉迷電玩世界，引申在現實中卻會投注異常的心力在感興趣或流行的事情上，就像電玩一樣。

印度崛起+鍍金中國

近讀兩本中印兩國崛起的書籍，分別是許知遠的《鍍金中國：大國雄起的虛與實》（香港：天窗，2009）和朱雲鵬等的《印度崛起》（台北：高寶國際，2007）。

許書旁徵博引，典型的內地評論風格，也引證了討論事情從歷史入手是相對容易的。許書的內容不算新鮮，加一點作者在dotcom浪潮中的個人經歷，倒是有點可觀。記得起內容大約是評論中國人在國內最喜歡對精英口誅筆伐，殺之而後快的風氣甚為普及；可是當中國人面對外國，卻只會親近傳統精英大國的國民。有點道理，至少在個人層面上如是；國家層面當然不一樣，只要細看中國自1949年以來與非洲國家的關係就可知道，更何況是近十年在非洲各國對自然資源的開發。

《印度崛起》是Rich致富館系列之一，可說是打算前往印度投資居住的台灣人必讀的書籍，以經濟貿易為核心，以曾任駐新德里經濟文化中心經濟組商務秘書林春壽的〈印度的夢，由誰來築〉開章，從社會生活切入，尤其可讀。他說「印度商店普遍的心態是，懷疑客戶經常上門買東西的動機，幻想自己的售價可能比人低，不甘受損，因此價格都會莫名其妙地調漲。」（頁30）他家附近的雜貨店老闆說：「千萬不要用天平稱印度人的良心，人心經不起天平的衡量。」（頁39）「通常印度一本非虛構類書籍僅能賣到7,000本，使可稱為暢銷書。」（頁161）

Why I am not a scientist

I have been reading Jonathan Marks's Why I am not a scientist: anthropology and modern knowledge(Berkeley : University of California Press, 2009). Just stopped at p. 102. Quickly typed out the following quotes to return the extremely overdue book to the library.

Divided into ten chapters: 1. Science as a culture and as a "side"; 2. The scientific revolution; 3. Normative science; 4. Science as practice; 5. The problem of creationism; 6. Bogus science; 7. Scientific misconduct; 8. The rise and fall of colonial science; 9 Racial and gendered science; and 10. Nature/culture

"an advocate of scientism - that is to say, the largely uncritical acceptance of everything said with the authority of science - might also be called a 'scientist.'" (preface, viii)

In the sub-title of "A definition of science", he proposes his definition of science he employs in the book: "Science is the production of convincing knowledge in modern society" (p. 2)

Bringing forth the well-known and controversial article "The Two Cultures" by C. P. Snow, which divides the academics into two camps, namely humanists and scientists he states that "the price we pay for knowing more and more about the universe is that knowledge becomes so specialized that a scientist often knows nothing but science." (p. 6) "The rest of us find it more than a full-time activity to keep up to date on our subspecialty (say Molecular anthropology), much less on our specialty (biological anthropology), much less on our general field (anthropology, or whatever it actually says on the diploma on the wall), still less on other sciences - all still have the time and mental energy to read novels." (p. 7)

He quotes the geneticist Conway Zirkle's constructed mock diploma (p. 17):

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

certifies that

John Wentworth Doe

does not know anything but Biochemistry

Please pay no attention to any pronouncement he

may make on any other subject, particularly when

he joins with others of his kind to save the world

from something or another.

However, he has worked hard for this degree

and is potentially a most valuable citizen. Please treat

him kindly.

Hilarious!

"why shouldn't specialists in things other than science require a specialized vocabulary and conceptual apparatus to communicate their ideas as well?" (p. 18)

"One of the weirder fronts on the 'science wars' is the claim that science strives for transparency while the humanities seem to be striving for opacity, with dense, self-important academic blather, often in the name of 'deconstruction' or 'postmodernism,' rather than the lucid, comprehensible prose that characterizes science. Indeed (this position continues), the very goal of science is to be as widely understood as possible, while these postmodern humanists are terrible writer, merely using gobbledygook to cover up the fact that they have nothing to say." (p. 19) Writing something very difficult to comprehend "is by no means the exclusive domain of contemporary deconstructionists or postmodernists." (p. 20)

"I suppose", Marks says, "some humanists indeed have nothing to say but need to say something in order to keep their paychecks coming." However, he does some justice to humanists by saying "But that situation is not much different in science." (p. 19)

"The writing," he concludes, "on average, is probably better in humanistic fields than in scientific fields. Why? For a simple reason: scholars in humanistic fields have been subject to a lot more intensive formal training in writing than scholars in scientific fields have. It's part of their curriculum." (p. 19) How true it is!

"the scientific paper required an infrastructure before it could be an effective means of disseminating knowledge. Not only did there need to be a critical mass of people interested in reading such a document, but there needed to be the financial structure that would permit the knowledge. This necessitate some kind of patronage - the richer, the better" (p. 43) "Like any endeavor, science requires political patronage to thrive...But that patronage inevitably comes at a cost - namely, the freedom to question the political power that keeps science in place." (p. 69) Government today is the biggest and richest patronage. Where the super-rich men go?

"The idea that science should be dispassionate and apolitical is one of the most interesting assumptions about it, since in fact science has never been either of those. After all, passion - that is to say, unchecked obsession beyond the bounds of reasonable behavior - is one of the hallmarks of the successful scientist in any age. Science is not, and has never been, a nine-to-five job...scientific knowledge is empowering to the nation, and the nation should control the knowledge. 'Knowledge,' Bacon wrote epigrammatically, 'is power.'" (p. 47)

"[Thomas] Kuhn's great contribution was his very anthropological application of cultural relativism to the study of science. The clash of paradigms is a clash of cultures." (p. 58)

"Hypothesis testing is what differentiates science from other forms of intellectual activity; making a consistency argument is not - it's what everyone, from lawyers to shamans, does: they try to convince listeners by adducing evidence." (p. 60)

"until the Great Depression eugenics was neither unscientific nor even scientifically marginal - it was mainstream. It was so mainstream that, if you criticized it, you were beaten over the head with Darwin and Mendel!" In retrospect, and significantly only in retrospect, we can see that the scientific community had inscribed its class, economic, and social interests upon its science; in a particular cultural context (without an idea of universal human rights or a major government role in social programs) and political context (totalitarianism), the scientific community not only rationalized the genocidal practice but was to some extent complicit." (p. 68-9)

"Science is a human endeavor, and thus it cannot be devoid of morality, responsibility, meaning, value, or self-interest. The opposite idea, that science transcends the values, interests, or politics of its practitioners, is largely a self-interested image developed in the twentieth century." (p. 70)

"the courts were increasingly relying on the testimony of experts. But who was an expert, and what counted as expertise? Lawsuits were being cluttered with 'junk science'" (p. 96)

"Scientists hold privileged positions in modern society. They are, at the very least, employed and smart." (p. 98)

"The social hierarchy simply reflected an underlying natural hierarchy: rich people are the fittest and deserve what they have. Regulating their business practices and helping the poor would consequently be nothing less than a crime against nature." (p. 100)

Edinburgh alumni connected with China before 1949.

University of Edinburgh

G. E. Morrison

William Muirhead (1822-1900) 慕維廉, PhD (1894)

Sir Alexander Frederick Whyte (1883-1970) 懷德

...

University of Aberdeen

Sir Kai Ho Kai (1859-1914)

...

Scots:

Glasgow: Robert Thom (1807-1846) 羅伯聃, the first Ningbo consul

Edinburgh: Rev. John Ross (1842-1915) 羅約翰, United Free Church of Scotland, PhD

Alexander Williamson (1829-1890), 韋廉臣, LMS, then Scotland Bible Association?

...

Women and men in the workplace

The latest Time magazine probed me to two interesting books for women in the business world. Yes, for women. I am not a sexist, nor a positive sexist. I am inclined to be open to books especially written for women. They are Shari Storm's Motherhood is the new MBA : using your parenting skills to be a better boss (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2009) and Roxanne Rivera's There's no crying in business : how women can succeed in male-dominated industries (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). I have a strong opinion that men could also benefit from this type of books. First of all, to understand the opposite sex; second, perhaps more importantly, to know how we (men) might be understood and treated. To balance my over-feminine reading load, I have another book on the list, for men: Shaunti Feldhahn's The male factor : the unwritten rules, misperceptions, and secret beliefs of men in the workplace (New York: Broadway Books, 2009). As you could see, unfortunately or inevitably, this is written by a she, a bestseller author who has also written a book for women. I haven't read this book yet but it forces me to think that women may know men better than we do.

How different/similar it could be to manage a company with adults and a house with kids? Storm, the chief marketing officer for a Seattle credit union, gives you the answers. Storm's book is "a compilation of a few of the things" she have learned from raising her three daughters as well as over sixty women who are mothers, managers, and mentors (such as Kirsten Lowry of Nintendo of America). She provides very interesting and stimulating analogy between motherhood and management to help two types of women. First, obviously, working moms. Second, absolutely not less relevant, women who might have children in the future to understand that motherhood does not have to be a career liability.