Leonard and Virginia Woolf began the Hogarth Press at their house in Richmond, Surrey, to publish their own work. Success led them to extend to the publication of the work of other writers, though still printing the material themselves by hand until 1920. The early work of the Press consisted of new and experimental literary writing, literary criticism, and translations of contemporary Russian writing, and included the work of Vita Sackville-West, Bertrand Russell and Sigmund Freud.
Virginia Woolf sold her interest in the Press in 1938 and John Lehmann joined as partner. Lehmann, who is credited with discovering W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender, purchased for the press the periodical New Writing, which featured the work of writers such as Auden, Spender, C. Day Lewis, Christopher Isherwood, Bertolt Brecht and Jean-Paul Sartre. As the Press became more commercial it also published some affordable books for general readers.
In 1947 the Hogarth Press became a limited company within Chatto and Windus, and continued to publish under its own imprint. Following the purchase of Chatto and Windus by Random House in 1987, it became part of the Random House Group.
