Please see our list of titles we are currently seeking propsals for here.
If there is a
title that you would like to see Valancourt Books republish, please
feel free to make the suggestion via the form on our “Contact”
page. We are always interested to know what books our readers would
like to see in print.
If you are a
scholar or academic interested in introducing or editing a volume for
Valancourt, the following information may be helpful to you.
Valancourt Books
is primarily interested in republishing quality neglected works of
literature, mostly in the realm of 18thth and 19 century popular fiction. We aim to resurrect and make widely
available to readers and scholars rare and important books that would
otherwise be inaccessible, in attractive, affordable editions. We
specialize particularly in Gothic, supernatural, horror, weird,
sensational, and mystery/suspense fiction, including everything from
Minerva Press Gothics to Victorian penny dreadfuls to fin de
siècle and
decadent works.
We also publish a number of lost literary works by gay authors or
with gay themes. At this time, we publish almost exclusively
fictional works originally published in the British Isles, as well as
a small number of translations of important foreign language works
published in England.
We always welcome
proposals for new editions that would be a good fit with our
catalogue and publishing aims. In general, when commissioning new
volumes, we are looking for a thoroughly proofread text taken from
the first edition of the work, together with a quality introduction
that is thorough and scholarly in nature, but yet accessible and
interesting to undergraduate students and non-academic readers.
Although we make occasional exceptions, in general we are not looking
for heavily annotated volumes with substantial scholarly apparatus,
such as variant textual readings and appendices. It is not necessary
to send a formal, detailed proposal. An email introducing yourself
and giving a brief description of your idea is generally sufficient.
Because of our small size and niche focus, we generally do not take on editions of books that are widely available with other presses such as Penguin, Oxford University Press, or Broadview, unless you are able to demonstrate to us how your edition differs from or improves upon those editions already available.
Thanks to our
unique publishing model and use of modern technology, we are able to
bring out editions of important books that historically remained out
of print because they could not sell enough copies to justify a
larger publisher's investment. Nonetheless, we are looking for books
that are likely to sell a minimum of at least 50 copies per year.
Thus, if you are proposing a particularly obscure text that may not
have a wide readership, it might be helpful to survey your colleagues
and determine whether any of them would be likely regularly to order
the book for a course, which would help the press meet this
threshold.
Finally, please note that because any profits from the sales of our works are reinvested back in the business and dedicated toward the cost of acquiring and republishing these rare texts, we are generally unable to pay contributors, although all our editors receive prominent credit in the book and on our website, along with complimentary copies of their volume, a significant discount on the rest of our catalogue, and other benefits.