The Zodiac Press (London, UK) / Chatto & Windus (London, UK)
Series dates: 1946-1985
Size: 5.5″ x 8.25″
Revised 10/19/2023
A full-size (8vo) series of classics initiated by Chatto & Windus under their Zodiac Press imprint in 1946. The series was sold in the U.S. (starting in 1952, for $3 a copy) by the Grove Press. There do not seem to be copies of the Zodiac Press series with the Grove Press imprint. Like the short gift-book series the Zodiac Books, the Zodiac Press series featured creative patterned bindings created with assistance from the fabric printing industry. Common jackets were supplemented (but not replaced by unique, illustrated jackets in the late 1960s. The last new titles were a trio of Brontë volumes issued in 1985. Titles in the series were reprinted until 2003, several years after Chatto & Windus was absorbed by Random House.
43 titles in all were issued in the Zodiac Press series, between 1946 and 1985. There were numerous reprints of most titles. Some faux-fine bindings appear in the 1940s and 1950s, including sets of Austen and Trollope titles.
1946: 6 titles
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë
The Vicar of Wakefield, by Oliver Goldsmith
Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson
Barchester Towers, by Anthony Trollope
The Warden, by Anthony Trollope
1947: 5 titles
Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen
Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë
Dr. Thorne, by Anthony Trollope
Framley Parsonage, by Anthony Trollope
Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf
1948: 6 titles
Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
Villette, by Charlotte Brontë
A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray
The Small House at Allington, by Anthony Trollope
1949: 3 titles
Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen
Persuasion, by Jane Austen
The Last Chronicle of Barset, by Anthony Trollope
1950: 3 titles
Emma, by Jane Austen
Middlemarch, by George Eliot
The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot
1952: 1 title
Adam Bede, by George Eliot
1954: 2 titles
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë
Silas Marner, by George Eliot
1955: 1 title
Pudd’nhead Wilson, by Mark Twain
1957: 1 title
A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur, by Mark Twain
1961: 1 title
The Charterhouse of Parma, by Stendhal
1962: 2 titles
*The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, by Daniel DeFoe
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
1963: 1 title
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
1969: 1 title
Miss Marjoribanks, by Mrs. Oliphant
1971: 1 title
Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot
1972: 2 titles
The Real Charlotte, by E.OE. Somerville & Martin Ross
John Caldigate, by Anthony Trollope
1973: 1 titles
The Big House of Inver, by E.OE. Somerville & Martin Ross
1975: 1 title
Armadale, by Wilkie Collins
1980: 2 titles
The Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy
Tess of the d’Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy
1985: 3 titles
*Agnes Grey, by Anne Brontë
*The Professor, by Charlotte Brontë
*Shirley, by Charlotte Brontë
*Thanks to Philip Shaw for confirmation of these titles
The 1947 copy of Austen’s Sense and Sensibility has a common jacket design used through at least 1972. The price of 7s./6d. is indicated on the otherwise blank front jacket flap.
Titles published (and soon to be published) as of 1947 are listed on the back of the jacket.
Each book had a patterned cloth binding.
Half-title page.
A very brief biography of the author faces a color title page.
The copyright page indicates for at least this Austin title the book was co-published by Chatto & Windus with Oxford University Press.
