The publishing firm Eyre and Spottiswoode had its origins in the eighteenth century printer William Strahan. Strahan bought a share in the right of the office of royal printer from John Eyre in 1766, and when Strahan's son, Andrew, shared the business with his nephews Andrew and Robert Spottiswoode in 1812, the company Eyre and Spottiswoode was formed.
Until the early twentieth century the emphasis of the firm was on printing rather than publishing. This changed after Douglas Jerrold joined the company as managing editor in 1928, and by 1932 Eyre and Spottiswoode had a list which included literary novels and serious fiction, in the areas of history, politics, law and religion. Always interested in Roman Catholic publishing due to the allegiances of some of its directors, Eyre and Spottiswoode in 1939 purchased the Catholic publishing house of Burns, Oates and Company, and in 1943 Jerrold and Christopher Hollis formed Hollis and Carter as a subsidiary of Burns and Oates, to publish contemporary Catholic material, and childrens books. In 1944 the firm acquired E. and F. Spon, science and technology publishers.
Eyre and Spottiswoode published the work of leading British authors such as Wyndham Lewis and Grahame Greene, but it was also receptive to the work of Commonwealth, European and American writers. It was the English publisher of Francois Mauriac, Frances Parkinson-Keyes, Robert Penn Warren, Mervyn Peake, Bernard Malamud, and of a number of the novels of Patrick White.
In 1957 the companies Eyre and Spottiswoode, Methuen, and Chapman and Hall joined in the company Asssociated Book Publishers, in which they shared production and marketing operations while maintaining editorial independence. In 1968 the three imprints agreed that Chapman and Hall would specialise in scientific publishing, Methuen academic, and Eyre and Spottiswood general publishing. The general publishing division was known as Methuen, Eyre and Spottiswoode to 1972, Eyre Methuen to 1982, and simply Methuen until 1987, when Associated Book Publishers was bought by International Thomson. The Eyre and Spottswoode imprint disappeared after the Octopus Group bought Associated Book Publishers in 1988.
