W. H. Allen & Co.

This article is about the publisher. For the engineering company, see W.H. Allen, Sons and Co.

William H. Allen and Company (est. 1835) was a bookselling and publishing business in London, England,^[1] at first known for issuing works related to the British colonies.^[2] It operated from headquarters in Leadenhall Street, later moving to Waterloo Place. Early owners and staff included James P. Allen, William Ferneley Allen (d. 1877), and William Houghton Allen.^[3]

W. H. Allen & Co.

Founded	1835; 189 years ago (1835)
Founder	William Houghton Allen
Defunct	1991 (1991)
Successor	Virgin Books
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Headquarters location	London
Publication types	Books
Nonfiction topics	Nonfiction
Fiction genres	Science fiction
Imprints	Target Books
Owner(s)	Ebury Publishing

After a series of acquisitions, the W. H. Allen name disappeared in 1991.

History

By 1975 W. H. Allen was part of the British conglomerate Howard & Wyndham Ltd. During 1977 and 1978 the Wyndham identity was phased out, with the whole publishing line being identified with the W. H. Allen brand. The Target Books paperback line became well known for its highly successful range of novelisations and other assorted books based on the popular science fiction television series Doctor Who.

In 1977, W. H. Allen acquired Warner Communications' publishing division, including Williams Publishing and Thorpe & Porter; but by 1978–1979 W. H. Allen decided to close down both divisions.^[4]

W. H. Allen was acquired by Virgin Books in a process that spanned late 1986 to late 1987.^[5] Virgin Books was incorporated into W. H. Allen in 1989, but in 1991 W. H. Allen was renamed Virgin Publishing Ltd. Random House, through its United Kingdom division, acquired a 90% stake in Virgin Books in March 2007.^[6] In November 2009, Virgin became an independent imprint within Ebury Publishing, a division of the Random House Group.^[7]

Book series

• All About Series for Children
• Allen's Naturalist's Library
• The Book of the Film Series
• British Trade Union History Collection
• Comet Book
• Eminent Women Series
• Falconhurst Series
• The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians
• Hurricane Books
• The Illustrated History of the Movies
• Lensman Series
• Made Simple Books
• NARC Series
• Sensual World (autobiographical series by Rupert Croft-Cooke)
• Splendour Books
• Star Books
• Statesmen Series
• Target Books
• Theatre Review
• This Is... - series of children's travel books illustrated by Miroslav Šašek
• Worth-While War-Time Books

Predecessors

• Black, Kingsbury, and Parbury
• Black, Kingsbury, Parbury and Allen, 1818–1822^[1][8]
• Kingsbury, Parbury, and Allen, 1822–1827 (William Houghton Allen, Thomas Kingsbury, Charles Parbury)^[9][1]
• Parbury, Allen, and Co., 1827–1834 (William Houghton Allen, Charles Parbury)^[9][10][11]
• Parbury and Allen

See also

• George Parbury

References

1. "Kingsbury, Parbury and Allen". Data.bnf.fr. Bibliothèque nationale de France. Retrieved 1 February 2017.
2. Theo D'haen; et al., eds. (2012). Routledge Companion to World Literature. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-65575-3.
3. "Obituary", The Bookseller, London, 2 June 1877. Pages 498–500; William Ferneley Allen, page 499.
4. Skinn, Dez. "The End of HoH". DezSkinn.com.
5. Howe, David J. (2007). The Target Book. Surrey: Telos Publishing Ltd. p. 112.
6. Joel Rickett, Random House UK buys Virgin Books, The Bookseller, 5 March 2007 (via archive.org).
7. Benedicte Page, "Virgin joins Ebury stable, Sadler leaving", The Bookseller, 2 November 2009.
8. Post Office London Directory for 1820, Critchett & Woods, 1799, hdl:2027/njp.32101073399170.
9. Britain, Great (30 January 1827), London Gazette.
10. Leigh's New Picture of London. Samuel Leigh. 1827.
11. "Parbury, Allen, and Co". WorldCat. Retrieved 1 February 2017.

Bibliography

issued by the firm

• Asiatic Journal
  • The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British and Foreign India, China, and Australasia. New Series. Vol. XXVI. Wm. H. Allen and Co. May–August 1838. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
  • East India Company (1832). The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany, Volume 8. Wm. H. Allen & Company. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
  • The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany, Volume 26. Wm. H. Allen & Company. 1838. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
  • Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany. Wm. H. Allen & Company. 1839. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
  • The Asiatic journal and monthly register for British and foreign India, China and Australasia, Volume 29. Allen. 1839. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
  • The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany, Volume 9. Wm. H. Allen & Company. 1882. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
  • Asiatic Journal, Volume 9. Parbury, Allen, and Company. 1832. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
• Catalogs
  • Catalogue of Books in Oriental Literature...Published or Imported by Wm. H. Allen and Co., Booksellers to the Honourable East-India Company. London. 1837.
• A grammar of the Hindūstānī or Urdū language
  • John Thompson Platts (1874). A grammar of the Hindūstānī or Urdū language. Vol. 6423 of Harvard College Library preservation microfilm program. LONDON: W.H. Allen. p. 399. Retrieved 6 July 2011.Oxford University
  • John Thompson Platts (1892). A grammar of the Hindūstānī or Urdū language. LONDON: W.H. Allen. p. 399. Retrieved 6 July 2011.the New York Public Library
• Dictionaries
  • Platts, John Thompson (1884). A dictionary of Urdu, classical Hindi, and English. London: W. H. Allen & Co. OCLC 1243728973.