The magazine Carcanet had fallen on hard times by October 1967 when Michael Schmidt, a newly arrived undergraduate at Wadham College, Oxford, took it over.
In 1969 as a swansong the magazine produced a few pamphlets: poetry by new writers from Britain, India and the United States, and a book of translations.
[citation needed] Carcanet was conceived at Pin Farm, South Hinksey, Oxford, in 1969 by Peter Jones, Gareth Reeves and Michael Schmidt, and Grevel Lindop was instrumental in suggesting the Fyfield Books series.
The Fyfield Books imprint includes selections from the great European and American classics from ancient to modern times.
Carcanet also publish a range of inventive fiction and literary criticism alongside the Lives and Letters series and the Aspects of Portugal imprint.