Carcanet Press
Encyclopedia
Carcanet Press is a publisher, primarily of poetry, based in the United Kingdom
and founded in 1969 by Michael Schmidt
.
Carcanet Press is now in its fourth decade. In 2000 it was named the Sunday Times millennium Small Publisher of the Year. Four of its authors have received Nobel Prizes, nine have received the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry
, six have received Pulitzer Prizes, among many other honours. Carcanet publishes a comprehensive and diverse list of modern and classic poetry in English and in translation.
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. Times got harder still. 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. The reviews were encouraging. In 1970-1971 Carcanet Press became Ltd. The swansong continues, the bird having upped sticks and left Matthew Arnold
's (and Robert Graves
's) South Hinksey
, Oxford, for Thomas de Quincey
's Manchester.
Carcanet enjoys Arts Council England
support. Its list includes, alongside new writers from all over the world, major authors from the twentieth and earlier centuries.
, Gareth Reeves and Michael Schmidt, and Grevel Lindop
was instrumental in suggesting the Fyfield Books series. In 1971, when Michael Schmidt was appointed Gulbenkian Writing Fellow at the University of Manchester
, it moved to 266 Councillor Lane, Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, and in 1975 it came of age, taking a tiny suite of offices in the Corn Exchange, Manchester. However, the 1996 Manchester bombing
impacted heavily on the workings of Carcanet Press, moving it to temporary offices in Manchester House, Princess Street, and then across the river to Blackfriars Street, Salford, where it stayed in a kind of exile for six years, before moving back into the centre of Manchester. It now resides in Cross Street, between where Mrs Gaskell's husband's Unitarian
Cross Street Chapel
used to stand, and the little graveyard of St Ann's Church where Thomas de Quincey's forebears are buried, and in whose font Thomas de Quincey
was himself christened.
The Oxford Poets
imprint, formerly the poetry list of Oxford University Press
, was established in March 1999. 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.
Carcanet issues the controversial literary magazine PN Review which appears six times a year.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and founded in 1969 by Michael Schmidt
Michael Schmidt (poet)
Michael Schmidt is a Mexican-British poet, author and scholar. He studied at Harvard and at Wadham College, Oxford. He is currently Professor of Poetry at Glasgow University, where he is convener of the Creative Writing M.Litt programme...
.
Carcanet Press is now in its fourth decade. In 2000 it was named the Sunday Times millennium Small Publisher of the Year. Four of its authors have received Nobel Prizes, nine have received the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry
Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry
The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry is awarded for a book of verse published by someone in any of the Commonwealth realms. Originally the award was open only to British subjects living in the United Kingdom, but in 1985 the scope was extended to include people from the rest of the Commonwealth realms...
, six have received Pulitzer Prizes, among many other honours. Carcanet publishes a comprehensive and diverse list of modern and classic poetry in English and in translation.
History
Carcanet was originally a literary magazine, founded in 1962. Michael Hind, a member of the original editorial board, recalls how the idea was to 'collect together and publish as a periodical poetry, short fiction, and "intelligent criticism of all the arts"; there were to be both student and senior members' contributions.' The intention was to link Oxford and Cambridge universities.The magazine 'Carcanet' had fallen on hard times by October 1967 when Michael Schmidt
Michael Schmidt (poet)
Michael Schmidt is a Mexican-British poet, author and scholar. He studied at Harvard and at Wadham College, Oxford. He is currently Professor of Poetry at Glasgow University, where he is convener of the Creative Writing M.Litt programme...
, a newly arrived undergraduate at Wadham College, Oxford
Wadham College, Oxford
Wadham College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, located at the southern end of Parks Road in central Oxford. It was founded by Nicholas and Dorothy Wadham, wealthy Somerset landowners, during the reign of King James I...
, took it over. Times got harder still. 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. The reviews were encouraging. In 1970-1971 Carcanet Press became Ltd. The swansong continues, the bird having upped sticks and left Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator...
's (and Robert Graves
Robert Graves
Robert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
's) South Hinksey
South Hinksey
South Hinksey is a village and civil parish just over south of the centre of Oxford. The parish includes the residential area of Hinksey Hill about south of the village....
, Oxford, for Thomas de Quincey
Thomas de Quincey
Thomas Penson de Quincey was an English esssayist, best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater .-Child and student:...
's Manchester.
Carcanet enjoys Arts Council England
Arts Council England
Arts Council England was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three separate bodies for England, Scotland and Wales. It is a non-departmental public body of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport...
support. Its list includes, alongside new writers from all over the world, major authors from the twentieth and earlier centuries.
Location
Carcanet was conceived at Pin Farm, South Hinksey, Oxford, in 1969 by Peter JonesPeter Jones
Peter Jones or Pete Jones may refer to:*Peter Jones , English actor*Peter Jones , Australian rules footballer for Carlton...
, Gareth Reeves and Michael Schmidt, and Grevel Lindop
Grevel Lindop
Grevel Lindop is an English poet, academic and literary critic.-Life:Lindop was born in Liverpool and studied at Wadham College, Oxford, where he read English. After two years of postgraduate research at Wadham and Wolfson Colleges, Oxford, he moved to Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, where he...
was instrumental in suggesting the Fyfield Books series. In 1971, when Michael Schmidt was appointed Gulbenkian Writing Fellow at the University of Manchester
University of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a public research university located in Manchester, United Kingdom. It is a "red brick" university and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities and the N8 Group...
, it moved to 266 Councillor Lane, Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, and in 1975 it came of age, taking a tiny suite of offices in the Corn Exchange, Manchester. However, the 1996 Manchester bombing
1996 Manchester bombing
The 1996 Manchester bombing was an attack carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army on 15 June 1996 in Manchester, England. The bomb, placed in a van on Corporation Street in city centre, targeted the city's infrastructure and economy and caused widespread damage, estimated by...
impacted heavily on the workings of Carcanet Press, moving it to temporary offices in Manchester House, Princess Street, and then across the river to Blackfriars Street, Salford, where it stayed in a kind of exile for six years, before moving back into the centre of Manchester. It now resides in Cross Street, between where Mrs Gaskell's husband's Unitarian
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
Cross Street Chapel
Cross Street Chapel
Cross Street Chapel is a Unitarian church in Manchester, England, famous in civic and national life for its contributions to piety and civil society. Jane Barraclough currently serves as minister at Cross Street, having been inducted in September 2008...
used to stand, and the little graveyard of St Ann's Church where Thomas de Quincey's forebears are buried, and in whose font Thomas de Quincey
Thomas de Quincey
Thomas Penson de Quincey was an English esssayist, best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater .-Child and student:...
was himself christened.
Authors
Carcanet publishes the works of many poets from around the world:- Chinua AchebeChinua AchebeAlbert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe popularly known as Chinua Achebe is a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic...
- John AshberyJohn AshberyJohn Lawrence Ashbery is an American poet. He has published more than twenty volumes of poetry and won nearly every major American award for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. But Ashbery's work still proves controversial...
- Sujata BhattSujata BhattSujata Bhatt is an Indian poet, a native speaker of Gujarati.-Life and career:Bhatt was born in Ahmedabad, and brought up in Pune until 1968, when she emigrated to the United States with her family. She has an MFA from the University of Iowa, and for a time was writer-in-residence at the...
- Eavan BolandEavan Boland-Biography:Boland's father, Frederick Boland, was a career diplomat and her mother, Frances Kelly, was a noted post-expressionist painter. She was born in Dublin in 1944. At the age of six, Boland's father was appointed Irish Ambassador to the United Kingdom; the family followed him to London,...
- Donald DavieDonald DavieDonald Alfred Davie was an English Movement poet, and literary critic. His poems in general are philosophical and abstract, but often evoke various landscapes.-Biography:...
- Greg DelantyGreg DelantyGreg Delanty is an Irish poet. He is artist-in-residence at St. Michael's College, and current President of the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers....
- D.J. Enright
- Ford Madox FordFord Madox FordFord Madox Ford was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals, The English Review and The Transatlantic Review, were instrumental in the development of early 20th-century English literature...
- Lorna GoodisonLorna GoodisonLorna Goodison is a Jamaican poet, a leading West Indian writer of the generation born after World War II, currently dividing her time between Jamaica and Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she teaches at the University of Michigan.-Biography:...
- Robert GravesRobert GravesRobert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
- Thom GunnThom GunnThom Gunn, born Thomson William Gunn , was an Anglo-American poet who was praised both for his early verses in England, where he was associated with The Movement and his later poetry in America, even after moving toward a looser, free-verse style...
- Sophie HannahSophie HannahSophie Hannah is an English-born poet and novelist. From 1997 to 1999 she was Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge, and between 1999 and 2001 she was a junior research fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford...
- Mimi KhalvatiMimi KhalvatiMimi Khalvati is an Iranian-born British poet.-Life and career:She was born in Tehran, Iran in 1944. She grew up on the Isle of Wight and was educated in Switzerland at the University of Neuchâtel, and in London at the Drama Centre and the School of Oriental and African Studies...
- Thomas KinsellaThomas KinsellaThomas Kinsella is an Irish poet, translator, editor, and publisher.-Early life and work:Kinsella was born in Lucan, County Dublin. He spent much of his childhood with relatives in rural Ireland. He was educated in the Irish language at the Model School, Inchicore and the O'Connell Christian...
- Frank KuppnerFrank Kuppner-Life:He has been Writer in Residence at various institutions, currently at University of Glasgow, and Strathclyde University.-Awards:* 2008 Creative Scotland Award* 1995 McVitie’s Writer of the Year Award, for Something Very Like Murder...
- Hugh MacDiarmidHugh MacDiarmidHugh MacDiarmid is the pen name of Christopher Murray Grieve , a significant Scottish poet of the 20th century. He was instrumental in creating a Scottish version of modernism and was a leading light in the Scottish Renaissance of the 20th century...
- Edwin Morgan
- David MorleyDavid Morley (poet)David Morley is a British poet, critic, anthologist, editor and scientist of partly Romani extraction. His bestselling textbook The Cambridge Introduction to Creative Writing has been translated into several languages including Arabic...
- Les MurrayLes Murray (poet)Leslie Allan Murray, AO , known as Les Murray, is an Australian poet, anthologist and critic. His career spans over forty years, and he has published nearly 30 volumes of poetry, as well as two verse novels and collections of his prose writings...
- Lynette RobertsLynette RobertsLynette Roberts was a Welsh poet, born Evelyn Beatrice Roberts in Buenos Aires to parents of Welsh extraction.-Life:...
- Fiona SampsonFiona Sampson-Life :Born in London, Sampson grew up in the West Country, on the west coast of Wales and in Gloucestershire. She was educated at the Royal Academy of Music, and following a brief career as a concert violinist, studied at Oxford University, where she won the Newdigate Prize...
- Peter ScuphamPeter Scupham-Life:He studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.He founded The Mandeville Press with John Mole. He lives in Norfolk, and runs a catalogue book business with Margaret Steward.-Awards:* 1990 Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature...
- Vikram SethVikram SethVikram Seth is an Indian poet, novelist, travel writer, librettist, children's writer, biographer and memoirist.-Early life:Vikram Seth was born on 20 June 1952 to Leila and Prem Seth in Calcutta...
- C. H. SissonC. H. SissonCharles Hubert Sisson CH was a British writer, best known as a poet and translator.-Life:...
- Andrew WatermanAndrew WatermanAndrew Waterman is a poet. Born in London in 1940, Waterman grew up in Woodside and Croydon, and at the age of eleven won a scholarship to the Trinity School of John Whitgift...
- Robert WellsRobert WellsRobert Wells may refer to:* Bob "Hoolihan" Wells , American TV personality* Rob Wells, Canadian musician, songwriter and producer* Robb Wells , Canadian actor and screenwriter* Robby Wells , American college football coach...
- David Wright David Wright (poet)David John Murray Wright was an author and "an acclaimed South African-born poet".-Biography:Wright was born in Johannesburg, South Africa 23 February 1920 of normal hearing....
Imprints
Besides the main poetry list, Carcanet is also home to a diverse set of imprints:The Oxford Poets
Oxford Poets
Oxford Poets is an imprint of the British poetry publisher Carcanet Press.The imprint was established in March 1999 when the founder and editor of Carcanet Press, Michael Schmidt, acquired the Oxford University Press poetry list. OUP's authors had included such critically acclaimed poets as Fleur...
imprint, formerly the poetry list of Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
, was established in March 1999. 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.
Carcanet issues the controversial literary magazine PN Review which appears six times a year.