Frederick Warne & Co.
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| Parent company | Penguin Group |
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| Founded | 1865 |
| Founder | Frederick Warne |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Headquarters location | London |
| Official website | www |
Frederick Warne & Co is a British publisher famous for children's books, particularly those of Beatrix Potter, and for its Observer's Books which have gained a cult following.
Frederick Warne & Co was founded in 1865 by London bookseller and publisher, Frederick Warne. The business was a replacement of an earlier association between Warne and George Routledge, who went on to found his own publishing company, Routledge.
During the second half of the nineteenth century, the company had built a good reputation for publishing children's books, publishing illustrated books by well-known authors and artists as Edward Lea, Kate Greenaway and Walter Crane. Toward the end of the century, Frederick Warne had retired, and left the firm to his three sons, Harold, Fruing and Norman. Warne was among the six publishers whom Beatrix Potter submitted her first book, the story of a rabbit called Peter. The Tale Of Peter Rabbit. Like the other five firms, Warne turned the proposal down. But the people at the firm changed their minds, when they saw the privately published copy in 1901. They said they would publish the book, as long as the illustrations were drawn in colour. The next year, Warne published THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT, and by Christmas it had sold 20,000 copies. This began a forty-year partnership which saw the publication of twenty two additional little books. Beatrix Potter was engaged to marry Norman Warne, her editor and the youngest of the three Warne brothers. However, he died tragically in 1905, only a few weeks after their engagement.Harold, the eldest brother, took over as Potter's editor. She continued to produce one or two new Little Books each year for the next eight years until her marriage in 1913 to William Heelis. During the next few years Potter turned her attention to her farm work, but when the company fell on hard times and Harold was imprisoned for embezzlement, she came to the rescue with another new title to support "the old firm." Potter, who had no children, left the rights to her works to Warne upon her death. The company continued to publish them; it also brought out several biographical works about its most renowned author. Over the years, Warne also expanded its nonfiction publishing, issuing among others the world-famous Observer books.
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