Saturday, May 12, 2012

Hesperus Press - choose their next classic

Hesperus Press is one of my favourite small publishers. They've created a niche in a very crowded classics market by reprinting shorter, often barely known, works by famous authors including Jane Austen, Christina Rossetti, Charlotte Brontё & Wilkie Collins. I've been particularly impressed by their reprints of the Christmas stories written by Charles Dickens & other Victorian novelists & published in his magazine, Household Words.

Hesperus have asked me to mention their new competition to celebrate their 10th anniversary. They would like readers to nominate an out of print classic that they would like to see back on the bookshop shelves. You need to write 500 words on why you think this book should be back in print &, if you win, your Introduction will be included when the book is published in September.

The closing date is June 1st so there's not much time to contemplate that long list of books that you think should be made available to all discerning readers. Although Hesperus books are generally about 100pp long, there's no restriction on the length of the book although it must be in English (or available in translation) & must be out of print. All the details & conditions are available at the Hesperus Press website, just click the link above.

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for mentioning this, Lyn - to be honest, I thought Hesperus had more or less folded, and I'm delighted that they haven't since their books are always great choices, and beautifully produced.

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    1. Simon, I'm surprised you haven't been asked to blog about it as well. I've never had any contact from hesperus before so I assumed all the usual bloggers would have been emailed & maybe my blog was noticed on one of their blog rolls. I'm glad Hesperus are still going, too. They didn't have a website for a very long time but it seems to be ok now. You must have dozens of suggestions for them with your love of the novella. Of course, I can't think of a single thing!

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  2. I'm glad you mentioned it too! I don't have something to enter in the competition but I'm delighted to hear about this publisher.

    Have a nice weekend Lyn.

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    1. Thanks Rose. It's a gorgeous morning here. Very cold but sunny although rain is predicted later. I love this time of year. Enjoy your weekend too.

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