www.castlehillpress.com

 

CATALOGUE

Untitled 1

Works

Military Report on the Sinai Peninsula
The Mint, 1928 text
The Mint, 1955 text

Translation

The Forest Giant

Letters

T. E. Lawrence Letters series
Correspondence with Bernard and Charlotte Shaw
Correspondence with Henry Williamson
Correspondence with E. M. Forster and others
Letters from Carchemish

See our full catalogue

  Page updated
 12 November 2008

 

Help - frequently asked questions

Buying

Shipping

General

Buying

Where can I see prices?

Prices for orders from this website are shown in the right-hand column on pages relating to each book, and also in the online shop.

We do not have a 'list price' or a 'recommended retail price'. If bookstores stock our books, they are at liberty to charge whatever they like (as is the case with other goods). We ourselves charge higher prices if we offer books through channels where there are additional costs, e.g., abebooks or amazon.

Can I order your books from a high street bookstore?

Not easily. We used to sell Castle Hill Press editions widely through bookstores. Then the big bookselling chains started demanding ever-greater discounts, longer and longer credit terms, and unlimited sale-or-return. To comply would have meant setting much higher prices, and probably lowering production standards. So now we sell to customers direct.

I am a librarian, can I order through our Library Agent?

You can order through a Library Agent. We have an account with Lindsay and Cox, part of the Yankee Pedlar group. You may also use other agents, but if they don't have an account with us they will be asked to send payment with their order.

Because we do not give trade discounts on Castle Hill Press titles, your agent will probably charge a commission over and above the prices you see on this website.

Note that we do not supply books on SOR (sale or return).

What is the cheapest way to buy volumes in the T.E. Lawrence Letters series?

Advance subscription is always the cheapest way to buy a forthcoming volume (see below: 'What is a subscription order?)

If you are new to the Letters series and wish to buy volumes that already published, you can save by ordering for three or more volumes at once.

I am a bookseller. Can I place a trade order?

Castle Hill Press is not a trade publisher. Its books are not listed in Nielsen BookData and cannot be ordered through book-trade channels. We issue trade publications under the imprint J. and N. Wilson. You can order these through Gardners Books. 

Why can't I find Castle Hill Press titles in trade reference sources?

Because our books have no RRP. If we list in trade reference sources we have to give an RRP, and that is picked up by online retailers who then offer the books for sale - often at a large discount which they seem to imagine we will finance!

Are your books also published in the US?

Generally, no. The kind of short-run scholarly editions we publish are rarely issued in separate editions on both sides of the Atlantic.

We sell more books overseas than we do in the UK. At present, we ship overseas about once a week. You can order via our online shop, or by mail, fax or phone (see contact information).

What is a subscription order?

For a limited period before publication we offer Castle Hill Press books at an advance subscription price. This is the lowest price at which we will ever sell the book. It is sometimes calculated long in advance, so if there are later cost-increases or specification upgrades the subscription price may turn out to be a good bargain.

We don't take payment immediately for pre-publication orders. If you subscribe, there is usually a stage payment when the book goes into production (around 8 weeks before publication). The balance including shipping cost is payable when we send you the book. More details>>

What is a "Subscribers' Leaf"?

Books ordered before publication (including copies ordered by Library Agents) often contain an extra 'Subscribers' Leaf'. This might carry facsimiles or illustrations. It is not present in copies of the standard edition ordered after publication.

We do this to encourage people to subscribe in advance. Copies that include the subscribers' leaf will always be more sought-after than copies that do not. We need advance subscriptions to pay our printers and binders.

Can I subscribe to the whole T. E. Lawrence Letters series?

If you tell us that you wish to buy all volumes in the T.E. Lawrence Letters series, you will be entered automatically as an advance subscriber.

Nevertheless, we need to contact you before each volume is published. This is to ensure that we have your current shipping address and card details. We also need your specific authorisation to make charges to your card.

If we are unable to contact you, we will not ship your book on publication and your subscription will fail. If you subsequently contact us to order a copy, it will not contain the Subscribers' Leaf. Please, therefore, make sure that we have your current contact details.

Will your titles become available in cheaper editions?

We publish scholarly texts for a specialised market. Cheaper reprint editions would require far bigger print-runs, i.e., a much larger market than exists for most of the books we publish.

Exceptionally, as in the case of the Oxford Text of Seven Pillars, we may also publish a trade edition. In other cases, we may publish abridged texts for the general market. For example, there will be a selection from Lawrence's correspondence with Bernard and Charlotte Shaw.

Do you ever sell-off books cheap, e.g., overstocks and shop-soiled copies?

We only publish texts with long-term interest. We aim to print enough copies to keep titles available for several years, but we don't bind the whole edition at once. We only carry a small stock of finished books. Because we don't have large stocks of bound copies, the 'overstock' situation can never arise. So you will not find our publications at "overstock" or "remainder" prices.

Occasionally, copies are slightly damaged in handling. For example, there might be a small scratch on the gilt top-edge. We sell these through the second-hand (used-book) market.

What is the price in US$?

In the right-hand column of our book pages we show prices and approximate equivalents in US$. However, exchange rates vary all the time.

To get a current equivalent price in US$ or another currency, use the currency converter at www.oanda.com. If you are paying by card, use the drop-down to change the rate from 'Interbank rate' to 'Typical credit card rate'.

How do I pay?

We prefer payment by card. We accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and major European debit cards such as Maestro. You can pay by card using our online shop, or you can send us your card details by phone, or call us (see contact details). You are advised never to send card details by e-mail

We accept payment by PayPal for books in stock. However, PayPal doesn't work for advance subscriptions. If you ordered in advance using a PayPal 'buy now' button, the money would be debited from your account immediately - but we couldn't ship the book. If you wish to pay using PayPal, please e-mail and we will send you a PayPal invoice

 

Shipping

What shipping options do you offer?

Our standard shipping methods are:

UK

  • Royal Mail Standard Parcels - which usually takes 3-5 working days. For certain weights, Royal Mail second-class post is now cheaper than Standard Parcels. Using this has enabled us to reduce some UK shipping costs.
  • If required, we will send books by Royal Mail Special Delivery. Note, however, that this is expensive for a package weighing more than 2kg.

Overseas

  • We use Spring Global Mail's premium service. Spring Global Mail is a joint venture between Royal Mail, TNT and Singapore Post. Packages go from the UK to the overseas destination by air freight and are then transferred to the national postal service for delivery. Shipping times are usually around three weeks to most destinations, but there are sometimes delays in import customs
  • If required, we will send books by standard airmail. However, the cost is usually at least twice the cost of dispatch via Spring
  • We no longer use surface mail, which is not significantly cheaper than Spring

How fast is shipping to the US, Australasia and the Far East?

Spring Global Mail's premium service is generally good. To judge by customer feedback, most shipments reach destinations in the US, Australasia and the Far East within about three weeks. Occasionally, shipments take longer (exceptionally, up to about 12 weeks). This may be due to import customs delays, or possibly a routing error.

Such delays are outside our control, but if your package takes longer than four weeks to arrive, please tell us. Spring depend on customer feedback to identify bottlenecks or other problems in the system.

How do you pack books for shipping?

We pack books in heavy-duty cardboard book mailers or double-walled cartons. We always include an inner plastic wrapping, to help keep the contents dry if the parcel is left out in the rain. More >>

Are shipments insured?

All our shipments are insured for damage or loss in transit. Because of possible shipping delays we will not claim for non-delivery until at least 13 weeks (3 months) after dispatch, nor will we submit a claim for a loss reported later than 26 weeks (6 months) after dispatch. In the unlikely event that your book does not arrive, please make sure that you tell us before six months have passed.

What do I do if my book is damaged in transit?

We rarely hear of damage to our books during shipment. If that happens, please return the book. If a parcel is obviously damaged on arrival - to the extent that the contents must be affected - it is best to refuse delivery. The damaged parcel should then be returned to us at the shipper's expense, not yours. Please let us know what has happened.

Very occasionally, parcels are severely damaged in transit - usually by powered handling equipment. No form of packaging short of armoured steel could protect a book against that. When it happens it is extremely disappointing, both for you and for us. However, the shipment is insured and if we have the book in stock we will replace it.

Please note: We cannot accept a claim for compensation or replacement of a damaged book unless you tell us about this within two weeks of receipt and return the damaged item to us.

What if I wish to return the book?

Under EU distance-selling law, you may return a book received from us - you don't even have to give a reason. You must, however, notify us at once and send the book back within 14 days of receiving it. Please pack the book carefully and insure it against loss or damage in transit. We will refund your purchase invoice as soon as we receive the book, provided it is in good condition.

What if my book does not arrive?

Since 1997 we have shipped thousands of books to customers around the world. Loss in transit is very rare indeed.

If your parcel is not delivered, the first place to check is the local delivery office of your national mail service.

If the shipment weighed over 2kg, it will have been sent by the Mailbag service. It may therefore be contained in its own mail sack. We have had cases where customers enquired unsuccessfully about a "parcel", only to discover weeks later that delivery office staff had been ignoring a mailbag that was there all along.

If you are concerned about the time a shipment is taking to arrive, by all means contact us. However, we cannot claim on the insurance before 13 weeks. Even delayed parcels almost invariably arrive before that.

We cannot currently provide you with a tracking number for your shipment.

If a book has not arrived after 13 weeks, you should tell us immediately. The longer you leave it after that, the less likely we are to be able to recover it.

Please note: We cannot accept a claim for compensation or replacement for an undelivered package unless you tell us about non-delivery within 6 months of dispatch.

 

General

What is a 'fine-press' book?

This term for finely-produced books makes no distinction between printing processes such as letterpress and offset-litho. Broadly speaking, fine-press books are produced to higher standards than are usual in book-trade publications. Fine-press publishers pay close attention to details of design, typesetting, materials, printing, illustration, and binding.

As a result, fine-press books have artistic merit as physical objects, regardless of their content. In the best examples, content and appearance work together.

High production standards mean that fine-press books are relatively expensive. They are usually produced in small, often limited, editions.

What are Castle Hill press 'special issues'?

In common with other fine-press publishers, we issue a small number of copies of our publications in quarter goatskin or full goatskin bindings, usually with additional content such as a section of facsimiles. More>>

Why not publish Lawrence's writings in a cheaper format?

Our editions of T.E. Lawrence's writings involve two types of cost.

The first, editorial research, is often very large. For many other twentieth-century writers, the editorial cost of preparing such editions might be covered by university salaries or grants. In the case of T.E. Lawrence, most research costs have to be recovered from the sale of the edition - and these costs are unavoidable. Therefore, however cheap the publishing format, our books would be quite expensive.

If we produced the editions cheaply as paperbacks, the price including research costs would still have to be £40-50 each. Yet the physical books would be almost worthless and they would quickly deteriorate. It is more reasonable to recover the research costs through fine-press editions, where buyers know that what they buy is likely to have long-term value.

We believe that high-quality content and high-quality production are a good combination. This is especially appropriate in Lawrence's case, since he loved fine printing and disliked badly produced books.

The second cost element is production, which in turn has two elements: origination cost and running cost. For a short print-run, the origination cost - the cost of making plates, setting up the press and printing the first copy - is usually far higher than the running cost.

In a short-run edition the cost of materials, which is part of the running cost, is usually dwarfed by the origination cost. You can make only modest overall savings by using cheaper materials. The reason that some trade editions are cheap - especially paperbacks - is that they have very big print-runs, so each copy carries a far smaller fraction of the origination cost. In a shorter print-run the identical book would cost far more to produce.

To summarise, we produce our scholarly editions of Lawrence's writings in short-run fine-press editions because this offers the best value for money. No alternative would be viable.

From the buyer's point of view, our editions (if reasonably cared for) should retain far more value than a cheaper edition. The cost of buying them is much less than visiting libraries to see original letters - and then researching all the topics referred to.

Do you publish other subjects than Lawrence?

In principle, we may. At present, however, we have no spare capacity beyond our T.E. Lawrence publishing programme.

Are you connected with any other publisher or printer whose name includes 'Castle Hill'?

No. We first published under this imprint in 1989 - there is a landmark called Castle Hill near our house.

Some years later a Nazi apologist began issuing books using a similar imprint. We have no connection with that imprint nor any sympathy with its aims.

Do you send out spam?

Never, but someone occasionally mass-mails spam messages with a falsified header that purports to come from an e-mail address at castlehillpress.com.

People who do this are criminals. Their mailings have nothing to do with us. You should never buy any products they offer. Some ISPs now block e-mail messages with falsified headers. Most spam filters should successfully detect and suppress them.


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