Lawrence and Wishart

Founded in 1936, Lawrence & Wishart initially became involved with the political and cultural life of the popular front, publishing literature, drama and poetry, as well as political economy, working-class history and the classics of Marxism. Book series published during the first decade included the Little Lenin Library and the Little Stalin Library.

After the Second World War, the company published work from the CPGB's History Group, including early work by Eric Hobsbawm. Later in the century, Lawrence & Wishart began its project of commissioning translations of selected writings by Antonio Gramsci, whose work on the relationship between politics and culture has ongoing significance for the company. The first volume dedicated to Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, was published in 1971, and re-published in 2005.

The mid-1980s saw the publication of works by writers who brought the insights of cultural studies to bear on more traditional political concerns with ideology, politics and power, a field of research that ultimately led to the range of journals that Lawrence & Wishart now publish.

John Newsinger wrote that the Communist vendetta against George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia was maintained as recently as 1984, when Lawrence & Wishart published Inside the Myth, a collection of essays "bringing together a variety of standpoints hostile to Orwell in an obvious attempt to do as much damage to his reputation as possible."