Hodder & Stoughton

[1] The firm has its origins in the 1840s, with Matthew Hodder's employment, aged 14, with Messrs Jackson and Walford, the official publisher for the Congregational Union.

Matthew Hodder made frequent visits to North America, meeting with the Moody Press and making links with Scribners and Fleming H. Revell.

Matthew Hodder was doubtful about the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, and the company refused Michael Arlen's The Green Hat, a novel published by Collins in 1924.

The 1920s brought an explosion of commercial fiction at keen prices – Hodder's "Yellow Jackets" series were the precursors of the first paperbacks, and included bestsellers from John Buchan, Edgar Wallace, Dornford Yates and Sapper's Bulldog Drummond.

As the company expanded at home and overseas, Hodder & Stoughton's list swelled to include the real-life adventures in Peary's North Pole and several works by Winston Churchill.

In 1974, John le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was published to much critical acclaim, earning him a Literary Guild Choice.

Originally publishing in paperback only, early books on the Sceptre list included Thomas Keneally’s Schindler's Ark which had won the Booker Prize in 1982.

Hodder & Stoughton also won the Booker Prize in 1985 with the publication of Keri Hulme’s The Bone People,[4] originally acquired from its New Zealand office.

Other notable books on the Hodder & Stoughton list in this decade include Rosamunde Pilcher’s The Shell Seekers, Elizabeth George’s A Great Deliverance and the first novel in Jean M. Auel’s prehistoric fiction series Earth’s Children® The Clan of the Cave Bear, which was an international success and the series, completed with the publication of The Land of Painted Caves in 2011, has sold more than 45 million copies worldwide.

David wrote the screenplay for the 2011 film adaptation, directed by Lone Scherfig and the book has sold more than two million copies worldwide.