30 May 2006
Since its very first publication, Children's Bristol, in 1976, Redcliffe has produced nearly 400 books. Of these, almost half have been about the city, covering just about every conceivable topic, from architecture and literature to boxing and football, from cinemas to life during wartime. An early success were the five books published with the late Frank Shipsides, Bristol's popular marine artist. There is still a strong emphasis on art today - Redcliffe has recently published histories of the Royal West of England Academy and of local artists Bristol Savages, and there's a book on Bristol Art Gallery in the pipeline.
John Sansom, who founded the company, is confident that no one else has published so many books about one city. 'Surely not in Britain, and probably nowhere else in the world' he told me, ' I can't believe anyone would be daft enough to want to do so.' He believes that Bristol is the most published English city outside of London. 'There is a long and impressive tradition of publishing in Bristol, and we are proud to be carrying that tradition forward into the 21st century.' Family-run Redcliffe Press has also published books on cricket, cookery, food and health, religion, company histories, biographies and memoirs. Its poetry list has included the acclaimed Eden by Charles Tomlinson, along with a Poetry Society Recommendation for a collection of poems by Ian Caws.
In the 1980s, Redcliffe ran a highly successful national poetry competition, one of the judges being future Poet Laureate Andrew Motion. In recent years, Redcliffe has established a name for a small but growing Cornish interest and a few years ago were publishers of three of the highly commended submissions for that county's Eisteddfod award for local publishing. In the 1990s two new imprints, Sansom & Company and Art Dictionaries, were set up to specialise in books about modern British art. These have included Face to Face: British Self-Portraits in the Twentieth Century and a series on the artists of Newlyn and St Ives. David Buckman's Dictionary of Artists in Britain, the major biographical source for information on contemporary British artists, was dubbed 'the year's most important contribution to British art history'.
And, having taken over a small north-country publisher's list, Art Dictionaries Ltd is now developing a regional art dictionaries list. Redcliffe was also a founder member of Bristol Books and Publishers, the consortium set up last year to promote the wider knowledge of local publishing and to encourage local creativity. The group will soon be publishing the first issue of the Bristol Review, a quarterly magazine devoted to local books and arts. To mark the firm's 30th anniversary, John Sansom is publishing what he calls, 'just a few hundred copies of a conversational ramble through our years in publishing'
Written Between the Lines: A Memoir Of Redcliffe Press is available from bookshops or direct from the publishers, priced £12.50.
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