James Clarke & Co.

James Clarke and Co Ltd is a long-established British academic publisher specialising in historical and theological books and also in reference material.

The company was founded in 1859 in Fleet Street, London, mainly as a magazine publisher. It produced the highly influential religious magazine, Christian World, which by the outbreak of the First World War was selling over 100,000 copies a week, and was the leading nonconformist weekly.

In addition James Clarke and Co began to publish some books. At first these were mainly imports from the United States – very unusual at a time when American publishing relied heavily on buying from Britain. Major nineteenth-century American preachers and theologians, such as Henry Ward Beecher, were thus introduced to British readers.

With the decline of Christian World in the 1920s, the company, by then run by James Clarke’s grandsons, focussed exclusively on book publishing, building up a list in religion, and in alternative medicine and spirituality.

More recently James Clarke and Co has specialised in academic and reference works. Its publications have made it one of the leading British theological publishing houses.

In 1984 The Lutterworth Press became associated with the company, publishing less specialised titles. James Clarke and Co and The Lutterworth Press are now based in Cambridge, and produce about fifty new titles a year.