Chivers

About Chivers

Chivers was a British publisher of large-print and audiobook editions, trading as Chivers Press for large-print books and Chivers Audio Books for spoken word, whose business passed to BBC Worldwide in 2001.

Open Library lists more than 3,800 works under the Chivers Press name, with large-type books, and especially general fiction and crime, as the leading subjects. These are reissues in larger type for readers and libraries, not original editions.

By 2001 the parent business was Chivers Communications, led by chief executive Simon Gibbs, with a North American arm, Chivers North America, that had begun as a distributor of the British titles before starting its own publishing programme in the late 1990s. In June 2001 Publishers Weekly reported that BBC Worldwide had offered £8.6 million for the company, on condition that Chivers first sold its Didio Communications unit.

The same year BBC Worldwide combined Chivers Audio Books with BBC Radio Collection and Cover to Cover to create BBC Audiobooks, headquartered in Bath. In 2010 AudioGO bought an 85 per cent stake in BBC Audiobooks from BBC Worldwide, and AudioGO went into administration in 2013.

For collectors, books on MyVolumes credited to Chivers are its large-print or audio editions; the first editions of those titles were issued by other publishers.