Routledge

About Routledge

Routledge is an academic publisher of humanities and social sciences books and journals, descended from the London firm of George Routledge, who became a bookseller in 1836 and a publisher in 1843, and now part of Taylor & Francis within Informa.

George Routledge (1812 to 1888), from Brampton in Cumberland, made his name with cheap reprints for railway travellers: his Railway Library of shilling volumes, begun in 1848 and sold at railway stations, was a great success. The business became George Routledge & Co. in 1851, later traded as Routledge, Warne & Routledge, became George Routledge & Sons in 1865 and took the name Routledge & Kegan Paul in 1947.

In the twentieth century Routledge published the first edition of Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom in March 1944 and Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies in two volumes in 1945. The firm joined Associated Book Publishers in 1985, passed to International Thomson in 1987, became independent again through a management buyout backed by Cinven in 1996 and was bought by Taylor & Francis in 1998. Taylor & Francis merged with Informa in 2004. Routledge is now based at Milton Park, Abingdon, and publishes about 5,000 new books a year.

How to spot a Routledge first edition