Dublin/London: Quartet Books, the iconic independent publishing company, is poised for its next phase of growth under new leadership.
John Walsh has joined Quartet as Managing Editor and will be based in the Dublin office. In a twenty-five year career as a journalist, John has held senior editorial positions with The London Times, The Irish Examiner, Reuters and Business & Finance Magazine. He has freelanced for the BBC and The Daily Telegraph and is currently a columnist with the Business Post. His critically acclaimed biography of Peter Sutherland, ‘The Globalist’ was published by Harper Collins in 2019.
“I am delighted to be taking up this role with Quartet and I look forward to working with exciting new authors. The company has a well-deserved reputation for being a fearless publisher and I hope to carry on that tradition.”
Quartet was acquired by Irish businessman and publisher, Ian Hyland, the owner of Catalyst Media Group in 2022.
Commenting on his acquisition of Quartet Books, under the newly incorporated Quartet Publishing, Ian said:
“I am honoured to be the new custodian of Quartet Books which has an incredibly rich legacy as a champion of Independent book publishing. I believe while respecting Quartet’s heritage we will now begin to build an exciting International Independent Publishing business working with new authors”
“Quartet Publishing will creatively embrace modern publishing practices in print and digital to maximize the potential for our authors, titles and reader experience. This is a very exciting time for book publishing and I look forward to working closely with our community of authors and partners to commence a new exciting chapter in Quartet’s journey”
The company was originally established in 1972 and acquired by businessman and author, Naim Attallah CBE soon after. It became one of the most iconic publishers in the United Kingdom with a stable of prestigious authors including Helmut Newton, Brain Sewell, Sally Emerson, Michael Darlow, Barbara Bray, John Swannell, Desmond Cecil, Rubert Darwell Amanda Prantera and Jonnah Yacoub.
We are open for submissions in the area of popular non-fiction.
Web | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube
For further information or interview requests please contact:
James McCann
ClearStory International
Email: james@clearstoryinternational.com
Ph: 0857277344
About Quartet Books
Quartet Books was founded in 1972 by Ken Banerji, John Boothe, William Miller and Brian Thompson, and taken over by Naim Attallah in 1976 who remained chairman till early 2021. Quartet Books pride themselves on being outside the mainstream and unconventional. They are
Bohemian London Publisher Quartet Books begins new chapter after acquisition
London based Independent book publisher, Quartet Books to expand following recent acquisition by experienced Irish publisher, Ian Hyland
London based independent book publisher Quartet Books has been acquired by Irish businessman and publisher, Ian Hyland, the owner of Catalyst Media Group and publisher of Business & Finance Magazine.
The renowned publishing company, originally established in 1972 and acquired by nobable businessman and author, Naim Attallah CBE soon after, became one of the most notable publishers in the United Kingdom becoming widely known as a home to radical authors including works by Helmut Newton, Brain Sewell, Sally Emerson, Michael Darlow, Barbara Bray, John Swannell, Desmond Cecil, Rubert Darwell Amanda Prantera and Jonnah Yacoub.
Under Mr. Hyland’s newly incorporated Quartet Publishing in London and Dublin, Quartet Books plans to relaunch titles from its existing catalogue and expand its publishing activities via new titles. Quartet Books has now begun the process of signing new exciting, eclectic authors while maintaining its Independent publishing tradition and expanding the publisher to an International audience in the UK, Ireland and the United States where Mr. Hyland’s media activities are already engaged.
The acquisition comes at a time of transition for the publisher following the passing of the company’s former owner and Chairman Naim Attallah CBE in 2021 and subsequent closure of the business in early 2021.
As Quartet’s new Chairman & Publisher Mr. Hyland has commenced engaging with Quartet’s network of over 200 authors and is exploring Quartet’s significant back catalog of titles with a view to revising and republishing some while signing new authors to the Quartet Publishing stable embracing both print and digital, building on the Independent publishers rich heritage while creating an exciting new portfolio of titles.
Commenting on his acquisition of Quartet Books, under the newly incorporated Quartet Publishing, Ian Hyland said:
“I am honoured to be the new custodian of Quartet Books which has an incredibly rich legacy as a champion of Independent book publishing. I believe while respecting Quartet’s heritage we will now begin to build an exciting International Independent Publishing business working with new authors”
“Quartet Publishing will creatively embrace modern publishing practices in print and digital to maximize the potential for our authors, titles and reader experience. This is a very exciting time for book publishing and I look forward to working closely with our community of authors and partners to commence a new exciting chapter in Quartet’s journey”
Ian Hyland acquired the Business & Finance Media Group in 2002. Business & Finance was Established in 1964 as Ireland’s first business periodical. He also acquired the Political magazine Magil (established in 1977 subsequently selling Magill in 2017). Today Catalyst Media Group (owner of Business & Finance Media) operates a portfolio of niche media activities in Ireland, the UK and United States across publishing, events, communications and C-suite engagement.
According to the Publishers Association the UK publishing industry cumulatively employs 99,000 people, 29,000 directly with a further 70,000 jobs in related industries. It takes in £6 Billion, of which 60% or £3.6 Billion is income from exports. Information from The Bookseller indicates that 39 of the top 500 books for 2019 were from independent publishers.
Web | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube
For further information or interview requests please contact:
James McCann
ClearStory International
Email: james@clearstoryinternational.com
Ph: 0857277344
About Quartet Books
Quartet Books was founded in 1972 by Ken Banerji, John Boothe, William Miller and Brian Thompson, and taken over by Naim Attallah in 1976 who remained chairman till early 2021. Quartet Books pride themselves on being outside the mainstream and unconventional. They are
Farewell to our Chairman Naim Attallah
We’re very sad to announce the death of our Chairman Naim Attallah. After a short illness, he died peacefully on 2nd February 2021. He will be greatly missed.
TJ GORTON, Only the Dead, Shortlisted: Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award 2020
Congratulations to Ted Gorton, author of Only The Dead, for being shortlisted among London’s literati!
The Authors’ Club announced the shortlist for the annual Best First Novel Award 2020 yesterday. The shortlisted titles are as follows, with the judges’ assessments: (more…)
Coronavirus update
In the light of the Coronavirus outbreak, like many other independent publishers, we have had to suspend some of our scheduled publications for the time being. MEMORIES by Naim Attallah, SIXTY SOMETHINGS by Nicola Madge and Paul Hoggart, THE SINS OF G. K. CHESTERTON by Richard Ingrams and MARKED CARDS by Emmanuel Olympitis are being postponed until further notice.
We are going ahead as planned with POMERANSKI by Gerald Jacobs (30 April, fiction) and THE MAKING OF AN IMMIGRATION JUDGE by James Hanratty (7 May, revised & updated PB, non fiction). Please email publicity for further info at: georgia@quartetbooks.co.uk
The economic fallout and human suffering because of this pandemic is incalculable. But life must go on. So while you are social-distancing at home, there’s nothing like a good book to offer shelter and inspiration. Books can be ordered online from our shop
We can beat this nasty virus with connectedness, friendship and good books! Be safe. Be well.
Beyond Black There is No Colour The Story of Forough Farrokhzad reviewed by New York Times writer, Farah Nayeri
Iran’s Poet of Female Desire, Forough Farrokhzad, is celebrated in a novel by Maryam Diener
posted 2/3/2020
Beyond Black There Is No Color: The Story of Forough Farrokhzad is written in the first person, as if narrated by Forough herself, in a loose diary style. It depicts real-life episodes in Forough’s life: her marriage as a teenager to a much older man, her early experience of motherhood and divorce, her affair with the married film director Ebrahim Golestan, and her 12-day stay in a leper colony, which became the subject of her award-winning documentary.
For those unfamiliar with the poet, the book is an introduction to her life and legacy. For those who know her well, it is a reminder of the powerful voice that she was and is . . .
Pre-Raphaelite Sisters: Models & Muses – Talk by Jan Marsh @BroadwayAF Sat 13 June 2020
BROADWAY ARTS FESTIVAL | A celebration of the arts in north Cotswolds
“Pre-Raphaelite Sisters: Models & Muses” Talk by Jan Marsh | Sat June 13 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm
Join festival goers for an illustrated talk by Jan Marsh, curator of the recent exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, which features familiar and newly-discovered images by and of women in the movement, including Jane Morris, Marie Spartali Stillman and Jamaican-born Fanny Eaton.
Dr Jan Marsh is a long-standing expert on the Pre-Raphaelite movement with trailblazing books and exhibitions on Elizabeth Siddal, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti and May Morris to her credit.
There will also be a book signing.
The event will take place in The Lifford Hall in Broadway
Tickets £15
Tickets go on sale to the general public through the website at 10am on Good Friday (April 10th 2020) and to Benefactors of the festival 2 weeks earlier.
If you become a Benefactor of the Broadway Arts festival you can qualify for priority booking so find out more HERE
BOOKS
Get your copy of Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood HERE
Get your copy of The Legend of Elizabeth Siddal HERE
Image credit: Ophelia by John Everett Millais, 1865-66. Private Collection
TJ Gorton’s novel Only the Dead longlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award
Do book prizes count these days, other than boosting book sales and giving literary book chatterers something to chat about?
Whatever your point of view, when it comes to contemporary fiction, it’s an honour just to be nominated.
So Quartet’s author T.J. Gorton is chuffed that his novel Only the Dead – A Levantine Tragedy has been longlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award.
Especially since the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award is now in its 66th year, making it the longest-running UK prize for debut fiction and – except for the James Tait Black and the Hawthornden – the oldest literary prize in Britain.
Longlisted BOOK INFO
Only the Dead – A Levantine Tragedy by T.J. Gorton | 14 GBP ISBN 978-0-70437-460-7 published 27 June 2019
Only the Dead is part adventure story and part exploration of the moral complexities arising from war, brutality and the desire for revenge.
Read the review in COUNTRY LIFE by Barnaby Rogerson HERE
Longlist announced for Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award 2020
Today, Monday 2 March, the Authors’ Club announces the longlist for the annual Best First Novel Award.
The longlisted books are as follows:
Claire Adam Golden Child (Faber & Faber)
George Alagiah, The Burning Land (Canongate)
Layla AlAmmar, The Pact We Made (Borough Press)
Jim Al-Khalili, Sunfall (Bantam Press)
Damian Barr, You Will Be Safe Here (Bloomsbury)
Sara Collins, The Confessions of Frannie Langton (Viking)
Joanna Glen, The Other Half of Augusta Hope (Borough Press)
TJ Gorton, Only the Dead (Quartet)
Anne Griffin, When All is Said, (Sceptre)
Jenny McCartney, The Ghost Factory (4th Estate)
Beth O’ Leary, The Flatshare (Quercus)
Jacqueline O’Mahoney, A River in the Trees (Riverrun)
Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Blood & Sugar (Mantle)
Lucy Popescu (chair of the judging panel) commented: “We’ve had another amazing year and so have 13 on the longlist. These remarkable debut novelists cover an array of subjects from climate change to South Africa, from slavery to Irish history as well as contemporary social comedy. Once again women dominate the longlist. It’s thrilling to support this fascinating list of debut novelists tackling such wide-ranging themes.”
Key Dates
Shortlist announcement: 27 March
Shortlisted authors event at Hatchards Piccadilly: Thursday 30 April
The winner will be announced at a dinner at the National Liberal Club: Wednesday 20 May
About the Prize:
The winning novel is selected by guest adjudicator Andrew Miller from a shortlist drawn up by a panel of Authors’ Club members, chaired by Lucy Popescu.
The prize is open to any debut novel written in English and published in the UK between 1 Jan and 31 Dec 2019 with one important exception: novels first published
in another country of origin will not be considered. The prize of £2500 exists to support UK-based authors, publishers and agents, so the novel must originate in the UK and not have been published anywhere else in the world before its UK publication
Inaugurated in 1954, the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award is now in its 66th year, making it the longest-running UK prize for debut fiction and – except for the James Tait Black and the Hawthornden – the oldest literary prize in Britain.
Past winners have included Brian Moore, Alan Sillitoe, Paul Bailey, Gilbert Adair, Nadeem Aslam, Diran Adebayo, Jackie Kay, Susan Fletcher, Nicola Monaghan, Laura Beatty, Anthony Quinn, Jonathan Kemp, Kevin Barry, Ros Barber, Hisayo Rowan Buchanan and Gail Honeyman. Last year’s prize was awarded to Guy Gunaratne.
Past adjudicators have included Louise Doughty, AK Kennedy, Vikram Seth, Philip Hensher, Joanne Harris, Deborah Moggach and, going back further, Kingsley Amis and Compton Mackenzie.
About The Authors’ Club
Established by Walter Besant in 1891, the Club has provided a social meeting place for writers for 125 years.
Events | BEYOND BLACK THERE IS NO COLOUR with Naim Attallah & Maryam Diener @THeneageArtBook
Maryam’s Diener’s latest novel BEYOND BLACK THERE IS NO COLOUR is published on 27 February. With the rise of mainstream feminist-oriented publishing and the debate around fourth-wave feminism being very much in the zeitgeist, the time is right to (re)introduce the Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad to British readers.
In the News
BEYOND BLACK THERE IS NO COLOUR will be included in Edmund de Waal’s “Library of Exile” opening at the British Museum on 11 March
The New York City Ballet’s new ballet, VOICES, which recently premiered at the David H. Koch Theater, features “Ms. Phelan, dancing to the voice of the Iranian poet and film director Forough Farrokhzad, is pulled in one direction and then the other as her willowy arms come to life in ways that her legs are used to doing.”
‘Beyond Black There Is No Colour’ by Maryam Diener launched at Thomas Heneage Art Books
Last night Quartet Books launched Beyond Black There Is No Colour, Maryam Diener’s wonderful exploration of the life of legendary Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad. At Thomas Heneage’s renowned bookshop, Chairman of Quartet Naim Attallah paid tribute to Maryam with the following speech:
Quartet are about to publish a third book written by an enchanting Iranian author who I have had the privilege to know since 2008 when I published her first novel, Without Saying Goodbye. Then she was Maryam Sachs, living as an exile between London, Paris and New York but dreaming of Tehran. A bitter-sweet tale of love and loss, it achieved some fine reviews but never received the exposure it deserved. Her second novel, The Passenger, was published in 2013 to receive the same fate – a few excellent reviews and what literary publishers term ‘respectable’ sales. Both books had much in common. An elegant, sophisticated prose sparsely spread over just a dozen pages more than 100 but with the acid clarity of Nabokov.
Maryam’s wanderings gave her time in Berlin where she helped create Éditions Moon Rainbow, a publishing house which specialised in limited edition art books presenting polylogues between poetry and the visual arts, including those with Marcel Broodthaers, Francesco Clemente and Bei Dao, Henri Michaux and Rosemarie Trockel, Christopher Le Brun and English poets, Enzo Cucchi and Italian poets, Jean Fautrier and Francis Ponge, Eugénie Paultre and Etel Adnan.
Now Maryam Diener, I’m thrilled to be publishing her imaginative fiction, Beyond Black There Is No Colour, inspired by the life of the Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad. Perhaps this book will break through the critical recognition and sales barrier. It tells the tale of one of the most iconic dissenting voices in modern Iranian history. Often referred to as Iran’s Sylvia Plath – for her highly original, confessional writing style as much as her battle with depression and tragic death – she went against the grain by challenging widely held conventions in a turbulent mid-century Iran.
Maryam Diener’s beautiful homage to a poet little known outside her much-troubled country will hopefully be given the reception it deserves.
Barnaby Rogerson reviews Only the Dead: A Levantine Tragedy | Country Life 25.12.2019
Only the Dead: A Levantine Tragedy by T. J. Gorton
PB • 216x138mm (with flaps) • £12 • Fiction (F) • 9780704374607 • £14 • Quartet Books
Only the Dead: A Levantine Tragedy is also, by chance, the creation of an American with long experience of the language, life and literature of the Middle East.
Ted Gorton has created a fictional memoir of a Lebanese entrepreneur who looks back over the stirring events of the past decades from the shelter of his poetry library in a villa overlooking bombed-out Beirut.
What makes it exceptional is the fusion of portraits of real people with impeccably researched historical detail.
I found myself immersed in a fast-paced narrative packed full of adventures on the battlefield and in the bedroom and spliced with espionage, revenge, betrayal and war—and I could not put it down.
Barnaby Rogerson
Kathryn Hughes Reviews Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood for the Mail on Sunday
Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood
Jan Marsh Quartet £18.95
Rating: 
The working-class women who modelled for, and even married, members of the Pre-Raphaelite artistic circle were usually portrayed as little more than groupies. With their luscious curly hair, bee-stung lips and Insta-brows, beauties such as Jane Morris, Lizzie Siddal and Fanny Cornforth may take up a lot of canvas, but they don’t get much credit for being equal partners in the making of some of the most revolutionary art of the Victorian era.
Instead these ‘stunners’, as they were condescendingly known, are consigned to the role of ‘muse’, a passive creature whose job it was to sit and suffer and stir up their Great Men to new levels of creative expression. No wonder so many of them came to a sticky end: Siddal committed suicide, Morris endured years of depression and Cornforth finished her days in a lunatic asylum.
But to write these women off as victims would be a huge mistake, argues pioneering art historian Jan Marsh in this seminal work, which has been reissued to coincide with a major exhibition on now at the National Portrait Gallery (until January 26).
Jan Marsh’s seminal work has been reissued marking the National Portrait Gallery’s show dedicated to the female Pre-Raphaelites. Above: The Bower Meadow by DG Rossetti
Instead, using the latest biographical research to update her classic study of the women who lived alongside the Pre-Raphaelite Brothers, Marsh shows that many of these ‘sisters’ had significant artistic skills themselves, not to mention a fair degree of ambition. Siddal, who had a long, unhappy relationship with D G Rossetti before killing herself as a result of his infidelity, was a fine artist in her own right.
Morris, meanwhile, was more than just an exquisite face. While her dramatic looks provided constant inspiration both to her husband William Morris and to her lover Rossetti, her skill as an artistic needlewoman went a long way towards fixing in the general public’s imagination the Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic: medieval tapestry motifs reimagined for the industrial age.
Not all the ‘sisters’ found such satisfaction. Georgiana Burne-Jones, a middle-class minister’s daughter who married Edward Burne-Jones, admitted that she had ‘fallen behind’ her husband when it came to artistic achievement because it didn’t seem worth investing in her ‘tolerable skill’ when she was surrounded by such stand-out genius. Today, we would wonder whether she was limiting herself because she was worried about outshining her husband.
Marsh is too scrupulous a scholar to pretend that every woman who crossed paths with the Pre-Raphaelites was a genius oppressed by the patriarchy. On the other hand, she has found some extraordinary stories about the ways in which these women contributed to what was still a family business – ordering paints, making costumes, sending out invoices, fixing lunch for everyone in the studio. This is popular art history at its best.
Kathryn Hughes