Hamish Hamilton

Hamish Hamilton Limited was a British book publishing house, founded in 1931 eponymously by the half-Scot half-American Jamie Hamilton (Hamish is the vocative form of the Gaelic 'Seamus' [meaning James], James the English form – which was also his given name, and Jamie the diminutive form). Confusingly, Jamie Hamilton was often referred to as Hamish Hamilton. The publishing brand Hamish Hamilton is currently an imprint of the Penguin Group.

Hamish Hamilton Limited originally specialized in fiction, and was responsible for publishing a number of American authors in the United Kingdom – including J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. Hamish Hamilton Law and Hamish Hamilton Medical were started in 1939 but closed during the war. Hamish Hamilton was established in the literary district of Bloomsbury and went on to publish a large number of promising British and American authors, a large number of whom were personal friends and acquaintances of Jamie Hamilton.

Jamie Hamilton sold the firm to the Thomson Organisation in 1965, who resold it to Penguin Books in 1986. Hamish Hamilton’s aim remains to publish innovative literary fiction and non-fiction from around the world. Authors include: Alain de Botton, Esther Freud, Toby Litt, Redmond O'Hanlon, W. G. Sebald, Zadie Smith, William Sutcliffe, Paul Theroux and John Updike. Hamish Hamilton also publishes an online literary magazine called Five Dials.

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