Penguin Canada recently launched the new imprint, Hamish Hamilton Canada, the company’s first new addition in eighteen years. It is an offshoot of a global imprint founded by Hamilton in 1931.
According to the National Post, the imprint is helmed by Nicole Winstanley, and “blends snooty British traditions, New York brashness and Canada’s more muted attitude toward selling books.” As Canadian publishing types celebrated the launch, they also pondered the global recession and the publishing meltdown in New York.
Penguin’s global CEO, John Makinson, remained confident: “what reassures me are that the 1930s were in fact the Golden Age of literary publishing in Britain. It’s when Jonathan Cape and Victor Gollancz and Michael Joseph and Hamish Hamilton all created their own imprints. Allen Lane founded Penguin. And these brave souls, in the teeth of the most serious depression in history, all created publishing companies that are still with us today.” (Via FishbowlNY.)