Virago Press (active 1973)

Virago Press is a feminist publishing house, founded by Carmen Callil (b 1938) to publish women’s literature.

The company was registered in 1973 and held its first board meeting on 21 June of that year with Carmen Callil, Rosie Boycott and Marsha Rowe. From 1973 to 1975 Virago was run as an independently owned imprint by Callil, Ursula Owen and Harriet Spicer, with much of the finance for the venture provided by Carmen Callil Ltd. In 1975 the first book was published in association with Quartet Books. By 1976 Virago had became self-financing. In 1978 the Virago Modern Classics series of books were launched, the first one being Frost in May by Antonia White. The aim of the series was to republish forgotten works by women writers. In 1982 Virago became a subsidiary of the Chatto, Virago, Bodley Head and Cape Group. In 1987 the five directors of Virago (Carmen Callil, Lennie Goodings, Ursula Owen, Alexandra Pringle and Harriet Spicer) completed a management buyout from the Group. The management buyout took a year to complete as the whole Group was purchased by Random House halfway through negotiations so renegotiations had to take place. The buyout was financed by Rothschild Ventures and Robert Gavron, with Random House UK retaining a 10% stake in the company. In 1993 Rothschild Ventures sold their shares in the company to Robert Gavron and the Virago directors. In 1995 Virago was sold to Little, Brown, with Lennie Goodings as Publisher and Sally Abbey as Senior Editor. In 2000 the Virago website was launched.

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