An excerpt by Thomas Abraham (M.D. Hachette India),sourced from a mix of company history documents

Those who believe in the value of history and a continued pedigree of excellence may probably be surprised to know that the oldest trade (general books ie) publisher in the world is Hachette which traces its lineage back to 1768 in English language publishing.

A quick aside that the French side of it is even older. Founded in 1708, Stock is possibly the world’s oldest trade publishing house It was founded in the 18th century by André Cailleau, who was succeeded in 1753 by Nicolas-Bonaventure Duchesne, who published Voltaire and Rousseau. At the beginning of the 19th century, the publisher was called "Au Temple du goût". In the middle of the century it changed hands and was eventually bought up by Pierre-Victor Stock, who ran it from 1877 to 1921 and gave it its current name. Stock’s catalogue lists no fewer than 1,500 French and foreign titles that trace the intellectual and aesthetic trends of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. The Blue Collection (created by Jean-Marc Roberts), the publisher’s prestigious French literature catalogue that already included Rousseau, Cocteau and Apollinaire, is now a list with cutting edge contemporary writers.

Hachette India is almost the youngest child of the family. I’m privileged to have been part of its journey from its very inception here 18 years ago. I retire at the end of this year (2025) but one of the foremost brand USPs for me has always been this incredible lineage, which is why I chose the ‘250 years and still travelling’ as our own brand tagline. Today with a quick note on our French grandparent, I’ll just focus on three of the English language companies scripted this incredible publishing history.

On the English language side John Murray holds the distinction of being the oldest publisher still around. In 1768 John McMurray was looking for a business opportunity. Confident that ‘total blockheads in the trade’ were making fortunes, he invested £700 of his wife’s money in publishing. A convivial hustler, Murray’s Fleet Street shop soon became a hub of literary life.

Murray's most notable author was Lord Byron, who became a close friend and correspondent of his. Murray published many of his major works, paying him over £20,000 in rights. On 10 March 1812, Murray published Byron's second book, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, which sold out in five days, leading to Byron's observation: "I awoke one morning and found myself famous."

The Byron story took another turn however when on 17 May 1824, Murray participated in one of the most notorious acts in the annals of literature. Byron had given him the manuscript of his personal memoirs to publish after his death. Together with five of Byron's friends and executors, he decided to destroy Byron's manuscripts because he thought the scandalous details would damage Byron's reputation. With only Thomas Moore objecting, the two volumes of memoirs were dismembered and burnt in the fireplace at Murray's office. It remains unknown what they contained.

The other great publishing company and my personal favourite is Hodder & Stoughton—special to me because of their yellowbacks, something I’ve been personally collecting since my college days over 30 years ago, and something that became a personal passion project. More about them in a moment but a quick potted history of the company first. H&S 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. In 1861 the firm became Jackson, Walford and Hodder; but in 1868 Jackson and Walford retired, and Thomas Wilberforce Stoughton joined the firm, creating Hodder & Stoughton. Like most publishers of the day H&S began as religious publishers. In fact the early lists had a strong morally censorious approach. The secular list only gradually accepted fiction, and it was still subject to "moral censorship" in the early part of the 20th century. Matthew Hodder was doubtful about the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, and the company refused Michael Arlen's The Green Hat, a novel published to great success by another rival publisher in 1924. In 1922, Hodder and Stoughton reluctantly published an edition of a baffling work they weren’t sure about -- Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. But the 1920s saw a sea change and brought an explosion of commercial fiction at keen prices – Hodder's "Yellow Jackets" series were the precursors of the first paperbacks (Penguin’s orange paperbacks didn’t happen till almost 20 years later) , and included bestsellers from John Buchan, Edgar Wallace, Dornford Yates and Sapper's Bulldog Drummond. In 1928, the company became the exclusive British hardback publisher of Leslie Charteris's adventure novel series, The Saint, publishing all 50 UK first editions of the series until 1983. In this decade they also took over ownership of the medical journal The Lancet. Hodder & Stoughton were also the originators of the Teach Yourself line of self-instruction books, which are still published today. Hodder & Stoughton's list swelled to include the real-life adventures in Peary's North Pole and several works by Winston Churchill.

During the war, Ralph Hodder Williams set up the Brockhampton Book Co. to sell off overstocks of theological works. The manager, Ernest Roker, had an interest in children's books and managed to persuade author Enid Blyton to write a series of books for them about four children and a dog. In 1942, the Famous Five series was born with Five on a Treasure Island. Enid Blyton was a phenomenon that still goes on today, and finally Hachette actually bought out the estate to become copyright owners of the vast collection that is the Blyton library.

The Hodder stable is huge and varied. In 1953 they published Sir John Hunt's successful The Ascent of Everest and began their long association with thriller writer John Creasey. In the 1970s, they brought the Knight and Coronet imprints into common use. The latter is particularly memorable for David Niven's much-celebrated autobiography The Moon's a Balloon. In the 1960s the Hodder and Stoughton fiction list broadened to include many quality commercial authors, including Mary Stewart whose works included Madam, Will You Talk? and sold millions of copies worldwide. The non-fiction publishing included Anthony Sampson's era-defining The Anatomy of Britain in 1962. Another notable title in the children's sphere was the 1969 Brockhampton Press publication of Asterix the Gaul by Goscinny and Uderzo. In the 70s two books caused a seismic upheaval in publishing. The first was Erich Segal’s Love Story and then in 1974, John le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was published to much critical acclaim redefining the espionage genre. Today the list goes on with Stephen King, John Grisham and thousands more.

I’d like to close with my favourite list—the yellowbacks. I’m delighted that at Hachette India we could relaunch the yellowbacks as a classics programme (but these weren’t your usual literary classics—they were the commercial bestsellers of their time that sold millions). The yellowbacks list I curated and republished here extended the original range by inclusions that I hoped would represent the whole history of classic crime fiction. The imprint has now moved from history to contemporary writing and we launched the first ever anthology of Detective fiction (a double volume) follows up with a volume of crime fiction this year. I’m pleased that in a sort of full circle moment; these titles now go back to the UK to be relaunched.

As they say, history is everything… so here’s to the next 250 years!