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FREE DOWNLOAD !

Now that shops are beginning to reopen I have removed the free download of Salisbury: History around us. I hope that you have enjoyed reading it as a pdf and that you will want to go out and buy a copy – and recommend it to friends. There are copies on sale (£12.95) locally at Rocketship Bookshop, Bridge Street, Salisbury, and when the museum, cathedral shop and information centre are back to a more normal opening pattern it should be available from them too, perhaps after a short delay. Waterstones have it available online so I am hoping that they will stock it in their Salisbury store – I suggest you ask them (if enough of you do, they will).

In its place (and for only a short period) I am offering one of several books that I have published during lockdown. The Victorian naturalist, novelist and social commentator Richard Jefferies, who has always been celebrated in his native Swindon area, and among literature students and social historians, wrote towards the end of his short life a kind of spiritual autobiography, The Story of my Heart. I have long wanted to produce an inexpensive but attractive paperback edition of this strange, beautiful and revolutionary work, and had enough spare time over the last months to reset the text in my favourite Doves Press type and publish it (at £8.95). If you are a Jefferies fan you will want to have a physical copy, and it will in due course be available in Swindon library shop and elsewhere. Meanwhile, and to whet your appetite, a pdf is here for you to download and read.

If you would like to keep up to the minute about what we are doing and post comments, why not follow the Hobnob Press facebook page which I have just begun?

John Chandler

Hobnob Press

is a publisher of books chiefly about Wiltshire, Dorset and the surrounding region, owned and run by local historian Dr John Chandler. In its present form it has been publishing since 2001, although its origins go back to 1983. On these webpages you will find details of all Hobnob titles currently available, books produced by Hobnob Press for other organisations and individuals, information for prospective authors, and an ISBN listing of all titles ever published by Hobnob Press. I do not offer an online ordering and payment facility (see the Ordering Information page of this website), but most titles, including those now out of print, can readily be obtained through retail and online booksellers. In case of difficulty email me. Oh, and in case you are wondering, Hobnob has nothing to do with biscuits ― it took its name (in 1983, long before the biscuits) from that of the hobby horse that accompanied Salisbury’s processional giant, now in Salisbury Museum.


Still Hobnobbing . . .
Publishing has always been only one of several local history activities that I pursue, and between 2011 and 2016 most of my time was taken up in developing, as county editor, the work of the Victoria County History in Gloucestershire. For this reason my typesetting and publishing output was reduced. Now that this workload has diminished (although I am still working for the Victoria County History in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire) I am reviving Hobnob Press, and have begun to produce new editions of some of my own work as print-on-demand titles, as well as important new works of local and regional history. I also help colleagues and friends in the local history world to self-publish print-on-demand titles, and details of recent collaborations are also to be found here.  And I now serve as chair of the Publishing Committee of the British Association for Local History. Please explore my website, in which I highlight new and recent titles, and past successes.

Local history publishing, in common with all forms of information management and academic exchange, has entered new and exciting but uncharted waters, and it is very unclear how this sector will develop. My hope is that Hobnob Press will continue to play an enlightened part in that development, and I welcome your views on my approach. Thank you for visiting this site.

John Chandler BA PhD FSA