Picador Collection to mark imprint's 50-year history with classic titles

Picador is launching a new paperback series bringing together titles from across its 50-year history, including landmark novels like Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho and Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life.

The Picador Collection, featuring the imprint’s white spines, will combine “the gravitas of a modern classics list with the eccentric, boundary-pushing spirit of cult paperback publishing”, the company said.

Launching in February 2022 to mark the imprint's 50th anniversary, the collection will initially consist of 13 books “that inspire devotion”. Picador said: “Not only are they frequently technically dazzling, award-winning and culturally significant, they are all primarily energetic, inventive and accessible, with a unique and inimitable voice at the heart of each story. We believe that for anyone looking to read landmark literary fiction and non-fiction, the titles in the Picador Collection are a wonderful place to begin—or indeed, continue—an eye-opening reading journey.” 

Titles on the list include Ellis' “jet-black splatter satire” American Psycho and “the unforgettable story” of Jude, J B, Willem and Malcolm in Yanagihara's A Little Life, now featuring its US cover rather than the original UK edition's. It also features Red Dust Road, Jackie Kay's memoir of adoption and culture clash; and the “exacting, exquisite prose” of Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty. Don DeLillo's White Noise and Jon Ronson's So You've Been Publicly Shamed also make an appearance.

Picador will also welcome back two authors, including Charles Johnson with Middle Passage, a “provocative and gripping adventure” set on a slaving ship that won the 1990 National Book Award. It which was first published by Picador in the UK in 1991.

In June 2022, Picador will also also publish five titles from the revered Antiguan-American writer Jamaica Kincaid—Annie John, An Autobiography of My Mother, Lucy, Among Flowers and At the Bottom of the River—with another five titles to follow in 2023. Picador first published Kincaid's Annie John in the UK in 1985 and she will also feature in the collection.

Also planned for later in 2022 are the recently announced Nevada by Imogen Binnie, hailed as "a seminal work of trans literature"; and spotlights on authors such as Clive James and Oliver Sacks. The Picador Collection will also publish themed mini collections and new acquisitions of lost classics and cult books. 

“The design of the Picador Collection is as vibrant and alive as the books themselves,” explained Katie Tooke, design manager at Pan Macmillan. “We wanted to find a look that is stylish, contemporary, playful and eccentric to accommodate Picador’s backlist titles. A look that stands with and apart from other classics lists, and is full of life. 

“The creative ethos celebrates the artwork and content with newly commissioned illustration, photography and design. Like Picador's authors, we intend to allow a space where we can platform artists from a variety of backgrounds and experiences, allowing both unknown and known creators to produce striking and innovative covers."

“We also used some older Picador artwork to bridge the gap from the heritage identity to a contemporary sensibility, on covers such as A House for Mr Biswas and American Psycho. 

“The original Picador Logo featured a rule with a point, which has now been released from the logo design and used as an angle developing a series look for the collection. The space and freedom of the new layout frames these covers in a modern format, while maintaining the eccentricity and playfulness synonymous with the Picador brand. 

“When the covers are stacked together they create a visual illusion of open books, inviting the reader to pick them up and enter into them.”