Founded in 1951,Peter Owen Publishers is a family-run London-based independent publisher based in London, England.
The company was founded in 1951 by Peter Owen, who had previously worked for Stanley Unwin at The Bodley Head. Owen's first editor was Muriel Spark, who would later write a novel called A Far Cry From Kensington drawing on her experiences working there.
Notable authors on an eclectic list include Paul Bowles and Jane Bowles, the Japanese Catholic author Shusaku Endo, Salvador Dalí,André Gide, Jean Cocteau, Colette, Anna Kavan, Anaïs Nin,Natsume Sōseki, Yukio Mishima, Hermann Hesse,Karoline Leach, the revisionist biographer of Lewis Carroll, Hans Henny Jahnn, Tarjei Vesaas, Miranda Miller, Jared Cade (author of Agatha Christie and the Eleven Missing Days), and many others. Although best known for fiction (especially in translation), the company also publishes plenty of non-fiction.