Work in Progress

Looking back on 2024 we are aware that of the dozen or so titles that we published ourselves (as opposed to those in which we collaborated with others) most appeared in the first half of the year. We were delighted to have been offered, and seen through to publication, a number of significant and impressive pieces of research, including social histories of Bath and Avebury, a comprehensive survey of Wiltshire’s public buildings, and several popular and attractive local and regional histories, including our first collaboration as publisher with the Victoria County History, for whom we both work as our ‘day job’. In fact it has been commitments to the VCH that slowed our progress on Hobnob books during the later months of 2024.

                And this means that now we have an impressively rich and varied list of titles making their way through the various stages to publication over the next few months. One, an eloquent biography of John Billingsley, the Somerset agriculturalist, we already have and is just now (January) being published. Imminent are Ken Rogers’ long-awaited study of Wiltshire and Somerset weavers (companion to his classic account of woollen mills); an extremely detailed archaeological and historical study of Minchinhampton church in Gloucestershire; and a fascinating account of Jane Austen’s female acquaintances and their families in Southampton.

                Not far behind are a study of Bath in the Jane Austen era (there is an anniversary imminent!); a multi-authored study of Swindon’s cultural and social history; the commonplace book of another 17th-century traveller; a new edition of Pam Slocombe’s invaluable study of Wiltshire farm buildings; a second instalment of Mark Everard’s river-themed ecological diary; an academic study of the history of poltergeists; and a new edition, with biographical study, of the work of a Gloucestershire natural historian who was once as highly regarded as Gilbert White of Selborne.

                Those are just some of the highlights. Louise and I are both working on popular histories for Hobnob linked to our work for the VCH (on Langley Burrell and Chippenham in north Wiltshire); and we are very honoured that Hobnob has been entrusted to take over from the University of London Press publication of volumes in the VCH Shorts series, beginning with two by VCH Hampshire, on the recent history of Basingstoke and the parish of Herriard. We are also helping local organisations to publish their own work,  including the Wiltshire and Dorset Record Societies and the Cheltenham Local History Society.

                So all in all we are set for a busy 2025. Please keep visiting our website to see how things are proceeding.