Douglas Cleverdon Book Publishers

Douglas Cleverdon (1903–1987), book publisher, bookseller and BBC Radio producer. Douglas Cleverdon printer & Publisher of Great George Street photo taken 1936. Douglas Cleverdon(1903-1987) published his first book catalgue as an undergraduate at Jesus College, Oxford and immediately established his reputation as a lover of fine printing and illustrations.

In 1926 he opened his own bookshop in his home town of Bristol, 18 Charlotte Street, Roger Fry painted the hanging sign and Eric Gill painted the fascia over the window in sans-serif capitals (from which Stanley Morison commissioned the famous "Gill Sans-serif").

He also published books, including Gill's Art and Love and an edition of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner with an introduction and illustrations by David Jones. From 1939 until 1969 he worked for the B.B.C. During the war he devised The Brains Trust, and as a producer, mainly of radio features on the Third Programme, he commissioned and broadcast poets (including Betjeman), playwrights, composers and writers, giving a first hearing to Flanders and Swann and persuading Dylan Thomas to come up with Under Milk Wood.