Pen and Sword Books facts for kids
Pen and Sword Books logo
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| Parent company | Barnsley Chronicle |
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| Status | Active |
| Predecessor | Leo Cooper |
| Founded | 1990 |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Headquarters location | Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England |
| Distribution | Self-distributed (UK) Casemate Publishers (US) Peribo (Australia) |
| Publication types | Books, magazines |
| Nonfiction topics | Military history, naval and maritime history, aviation, local history, family history, collectables and antiques, nostalgia and true crime |
| Imprints | Air World, Frontline Books, Green Bean Books, Seaforth Publishing, White Owl |
Pen and Sword Books, also known as Pen & Sword, is a British company that publishes books. They specialize in books about military history and other specific topics, mainly focusing on the United Kingdom.
Pen and Sword has more than 6,000 different books available. You can find them as printed books or as ebooks. Each year, they release about 500 new books on many different subjects. This publishing company is part of the Barnsley Chronicle newspaper group.
History of Pen and Sword Books
The first books from Pen and Sword were created because people wanted them. This happened after a series of articles were published weekly in the Barnsley Chronicle newspaper.
One series of articles was called Dark Peak Aircraft Wrecks. It told the stories of plane crash sites in the Dark Peak area. Another weekly feature was about the history of two special army groups from World War I, known as the Barnsley Pals. People were very interested in these stories. Because of this, these books have been printed many times over the years.
How the Company Grew
After the success of the Dark Peak and Barnsley Pals books, the company started making more local history paperbacks. They also produced a series of battlefield guide books. The Battleground Europe series became very popular.
As more books were created, the company decided to start its own book publishing part of the group. In 1990, the Barnsley Chronicle bought a publishing company called Leo Cooper. This is how the Pen and Sword publishing house began. Leo Cooper (1934–2013) was known for publishing books about military history.
Expanding Topics
Pen and Sword then started to cover more subjects. They began publishing books on naval and maritime history, aviation, local history, and family history. They also added books about collectables, antiques, nostalgia, and true crime.
The company continued to grow, including topics like transport and railways, science, archaeology, and exploration. In 2008, Pen and Sword bought two other companies. These were Frontline Books, which focuses on military history in the United States, and Seaforth Publishing, a leading publisher of maritime history books.
Popular Book Series
Pen and Sword publishes many interesting book series. Here are some of them:
- Aviation Heritage Trail: These books tell the stories, history, and events behind famous aviation operations.
- Battleground Europe: This series has over 100 illustrated battleground guide books. They cover periods like the 1066, Wars of the Roses, the English Civil War, Napoleonic battles, the Zulu War, The Boer War, World War I, and World War II.
- Classics: These books cover important military operations and stories from many different times in history.
- Cold War 1945–1991: This series had 19 books as of December 2020. They document individual battles around the world during the period from 1945 to 1991, known as the Cold War.
- FlightCraft: This series had 18 books as of December 2020. They focus on important military aircraft from the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, and Russia, mainly from the early Cold War period.
- History of Terror: This series had 15 books as of December 2020. They document important historical events involving terror over the last two thousand years. Titles include: Emperors of Rome: The Monsters, which details the 'bad' Roman emperors from AD 14 to 548; Irgun, about a group that wanted an independent Jewish state in Palestine and Transjordan from 1931 to 1948; and Northern Ireland: The Troubles, which documents conflicts on the island of Ireland from 1968 to 1998.
- Holt's Guidebooks: These are general information books with maps, memorials, battleground descriptions, and tourist summaries. They cover various military campaigns from World War I and World War II.
- Napoleonic Library: This series had 27 books as of December 2020. They are dedicated to the people, equipment, and battles from the Napoleonic Wars.
- Pals: These books tell the stories of friends and comrades who joined the same Battalions to serve their country during the Great War.
- ShipCraft: This series had 30 books as of December 2020. They document military battleships, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, sloops, and aircraft carriers. They also cover famous passenger liners like the Titanic and her sister ships.
- TankCraft: This series had 28 books as of December 2020. They describe in great detail the tracked military vehicles known as tanks, from Britain, Germany, and America.
- Warships of the Royal Navy: These books tell the stories behind famous Royal Navy (RN) ships. They cover conflicts from the Napoleonic Wars to more recent military events.
- Images of War: This is a large series with 243 books as of December 2020. It features rare photographs from wartime archives on almost every global military subject. This includes animals, aircraft, the Waffen SS, and Winston Churchill. It also covers individual battles, squadrons, battalions, and divisions, as well as the people and the equipment they used on land, in the air, and at sea. These books cover all areas of war since World War One, with detailed captions and references.
- Shot in the Tower: the story of the spies executed in the Tower of London during the First World War.
