Faber and Faber

a leading British publishing house of the twentieth century, especially notable for its contributions to the fields of poetry and drama. With Sir Maurice Gwyer (1878–1952), Sir Geoffrey Faber (1889–1961) founded Faber and Gwyer Ltd in 1925, the two having been in partnership since 1923 as directors of the Scientific Press Ltd. T. S. Eliot was appointed to the board of directors in 1925, with the result that Faber and Gwyer took over publication of the Criterion; Eliot's acumen was indispensable in the building of the poetry list, which, in addition to his own collections, included much of the work central to the canon of twentieth-century verse: Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden, Louis MacNeice, Stephen Spender, Wallace Stevens, Robert Lowell, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, and Seamus Heaney are among the many distinguished poets the company publishes. Following Gwyer's withdrawal in 1929, the name Faber and Faber was adopted; trade had been discouraging in the first four years, but steadily improved between 1930, when sixty titles were published, and 1940, when Faber and Faber issued 177 books. Dramatists whose work appears under the Faber imprint include Samuel Beckett, Christopher Hampton, N. F. Simpson, Ann Jellicoe, John Osborne, and Tom Stoppard. Latterly, the company has been increasingly noted for its contemporary fiction; it also publishes books on archaeology, art, history, literary criticism, music, travel, and a range of other subjects.