Welcome to Shearsman
Would all correspondents please note that Shearsman Books relocated its office with effect from 1 August 2011. The new address may be found on the Contact page (link below left).
Shearsman Books is a very active publisher of new poetry, mostly from Britain and the USA, but also with an active translation list. Founded in 1981 as a magazine, with some occasional chapbooks, the press has grown rapidly in recent years. 2011 marked the 30th anniversary of the magazine's first issue, but it will keep going for several years yet, as will the press.
Shearsman published approximately 60 new titles every year from 2008 to 2010, with another 48 appearing in a somewht disrupted 2011. Some publications from the beginning of 2012, shown right, include (from top down) books by Peter Robinson, Barry Hill, Tony Lopez, Maxine Chernoff and a 2nd edition of Tony Lopez's classic False Memory, first published in 2003. Below you will find the covers for two of 2011's releases in the Shearsman Classics series, both by D.H. Lawrence. Further classics are due in 2012, and details will be made available as soon as we know the books are confirmed and publication dates are certain. For access to detailed catalogues and stocklists in PDF form, covering all titles through to mid-2011, click on the last-but-one button in the menu to your left.
There are PDF sampler files of almost all of the books published by Shearsman available on this site; these may be accessed by going to the Books home page, where you should then click on the publication year, or the online catalogue pages in the menu, and then selecting the title you wish to sample. The only books not to have samplers are out-of-print books, those with copyright restrictions, or those which have not yet been cleared for publication. We aim to keep pace with new publications, making samplers available as soon as approved texts are available. There are also PDF downloads from this page, of all issues of the magazine from number 50 through to number 87/88; most of these offer some 50% of the print issue. Selections from further issues will be added to the download list when those issues are about 6 months old, or when the editor has time to make them available.
E-books are also available for free download, including recent titles by Geoffrey Squires, Gautam Verma and Andrew Nightingale—just click on the e-books link to your left. The Gallery contains poetry and visual work: the most recent publication there is Waddenzee by Kate Ashton & Gerrit Offringa.
If you're not sure how to find what you're looking for on this website, please use the search field below, which is a Google-driven facility.
New to the Shearsman site?
Navigate using the menu to the left: the choices there will lead you to the main sectors of this site, from which you can choose where next to visit, or to special information pages. If in doubt, return to this page and start again, or use the search facility to get to your destination.
A note on copyright
The copyright in all texts published on this website remains with the authors. Copyright for the overall selection and presentation remains with Shearsman Books Ltd. Readers are requested to respect copyright ownership and to request permission for further use of the texts if thats is intended. Copying or downloading of the texts is however permitted for the reader's personal use.