History
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.
William Pickering’s principles of publishing can be stated thus:
- Fine editions of important books, often in multiple volumes
- The best editors, and the finest scholarship
- Modern revival for classic authors
- Fine printing for commercial publishing
- High quality cloth bindings
- Publishing books which will live for centuries
These principles were adopted for the revival of the Pickering imprint. We have also adopted the motto William Pickering used for his 1825 edition of Francis Bacon’s "Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning". On the title page he printed the Pickering Wreath device with the words "Mundus lntellectualis" inside it. "The Intellectual World" which he served in the 1820s is the world Pickering & Chatto serve now, and those words, inside the Pickering Wreath, summarize our mission statement.