PickeringChatTo.com
Title
Pickering & Chatto Publisher
Description
Pickering from 1820 to the present day
Pickering & Chatto Publishers is one of the oldest book businesses in England. It was founded in 1820 by the great publisher, William Pickering (1796– 1854). He was the original publisher of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and specialised in scholarly editions of classic authors, both of ancient and English literatures. He invented the use of cloth bindings, and used fine printing for commercial, not private press, books. Among his most important editions were Blake, Malthus, Boswell, Johnson, Marlowe, Shakespeare and Isaac Walton. He was also an antiquarian bookseller.
After William Pickering’s death, the business was carried on by his son, Basil Montagu Pickering; on his death, in 1878, it was purchased by "old Mr Chatto’, one of the founding partners of Chatto and Windus. Through most of the twentieth century Pickering & Chatto concentrated on antiquarian bookselling.
In 1981 the firm was purchased by William Rees-Mogg, who took it back into scholarly publishing. The first publication of the revival was the collected works of Malthus, in eight volumes. This not only revived the original Pickering tradition, but followed Pickering’s 1834 publication of the revised edition of Malthus’ Principles, which includes the first life of Malthus.
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