Abstract/Summary

This chapter explores the Hogarth Press's publishing programme in terms of its radical anti-colonial, anti-capitalist agenda, and the complexities of what it might mean to read the Woolfs' in Laura J. Miller's terms as 'reluctant capitalists' Building on Susheila Nasta’s description of the Hogarth Press as ‘a radical left-wing publisher’ (2018, vii), and developing work begun by Helen Southworth on the socio-political publications published by the Woolfs (2012), I draw on publishing correspondence in the Hogarth Press business archive to consider how the Woolfs’ engaged as publishers with contemporary economic and philosophical ideas on capitalism through the Great Depression and into The Hungry Thirties. Key to my analysis is detailed case-studies of some little-known Hogarth Press authors and texts, with focus especially on the Day-To-Day Pamphlet series. Texts, networks, and publishing histories discussed include J. A. Hobson’s From Capitalism to Socialism (1932), Margaret Cole's Books and the People (1938) and Sally Graves’s A History of Socialism (1939). I show how the Woolfs’ engagement with these writers reflected their socio-political interests (not just Leonard’s) and influenced their own work, developing and extending their political networks and engagement with questions of industrialization, labour and economics.