Pergamon Press

Pergamon Press was an Oxford-based publishing house, founded by Paul Rosbaud and Robert Maxwell, which published scientific and medical books and journals. It is now an imprint of Elsevier.

The core company, Butterworth-Springer, started in 1948 to bring the "Springer know-how and techniques of aggressive publishing in science" They changed the house name to Pergamon Press, using a logo that was a reproduction of a Greek coin from Pergamon.Maxwell and Rosbaud worked together growing the company until May 1956, when Rosbaud left.

When Pergamon Press started it had only six serials and two books. Initially the company headquarters was in Fitzroy Square in West End of London. In 1959 the company moved into Headington Hill Hall, a country home rented from the city of Oxford.

In 1960 Brian Cox joined Pergamon Press as subscription manager. After the founders' deaths, Cox has become the primary witness to the phenomenal rise of Pergamon Press in the Science, Technology, and Medicine (STM) sector of publishing. The 59 Pergamon academic journals in 1960 became 418 journals in 1992. Cox recalls that in the process some 700 were launched, many transmogrifying rather than ceasing. Cox says "The secret of Pergamon’s success was to publish a large number of...
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