Frances Lincoln
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Frances Elisabeth Rosemary Lincoln (1945-2001) was an independent English publisher of illustrated books.
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[edit] Education
She went to school at St. Georges, Harpenden, where she became Head Girl.
Her university education was at Somerville College, Oxford. (Somerville at that time was a women's college, known in Oxford as "the bluestocking college.") There she read Greats (the Oxford term for traditional courses in the humanities, with emphasis on the ancient classics of Greece and Rome, including philosophy).
[edit] Career
In 1970 she started work as an Assistant Editor at the London publishing firm of Studio Vista. She went on to become its Managing Director.
From Studio Vista she moved to a job with the publisher Marshall Cavendish, and from there to Weidenfeld and Nicolson, where she was given her own imprint.
In 1977 Frances went out on her own as an independent publisher/packager, publishing both under her own name and in co-editions. The firm she founded continues as FRANCES LINCOLN. It is based in London, England. Arguably, the firm is best known for the list of illustrated gardening books it publishes, and for the illustrated children's books that it began publishing from 1983, many of which have won awards and prizes. Frances' staff in her own fim included University friends, and colleagues from her earlier career.
Frances won a Woman of the Year award in 1995.
A story that followed her throughout her career, often passed on from employees to new recruits, was of the staff-walkout and demonstration she headed while at Studio Vista in 1975. This was a protest against redundancies proposed by Collier Macmillan, the firm that had come to own Studio Vista. The protest went on for a number of days, and is described (correctly) as a strike. It achieved concessions from Collier Macmillan. (The story itself is striking for the incongruity between the shy and reserved bluestocking figure of Frances Lincoln, and the tale's casting of her in the role of "strike leader".)
No one who came into contact with Frances' firm during her life could doubt that she inspired deep affection and great loyalty in the many women (and they were mostly women) who passed through her publishing house in the course of their careers.
On the 26 February, 2001, Frances died from pneumonia at age 55.
[edit] Family
Frances married John Nicoll, the author of the first book she had commissioned. (He later headed Yale University Press in the UK). The couple had a son and two daughters.
