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Manderley Press: meet the real Rebeka behind the heritage publisher
Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel Rebecca inspired the naming of Manderley Press, started four years ago by Rebeka Russell.
Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel Rebecca inspired the naming of Manderley Press, started four years ago by Rebeka Russell. “I’d had the idea for quite a while. I’d been bothering everyone, going ’What should I call this press?’ Everything I came up with had already been taken. Then, one day, I realised, it has to be Manderley,” she says.
Manderley, of course, is the impressive house in Cornwall in which du Maurier’s Maxim de Winter lives – along with two wives, the unnamed narrator and the late Rebecca. Manderley features in the novel’s famous opening line. The name is highly appropriate, because "[Manderley] only publishes books inspired by a particular building or place. It’s the theme that runs through all the publications.”
The formula is simple: Russell finds a work by a late author which is either out of copyright, or gets permission from the author’s estate to republish it. She then commissions an introduction by a well-known author who has some association with the place or building in the work, and commissions a beautiful illustration for the cover. “The person who writes introduction, and the illustrator who designs the cover, have to be linked to the place in the book in some way,” she says.
Manderley titles include Henry James’ Washington Square, featuring an introduction by Colm Tóibín; The House in Cornwall by Noel Streatfeild, with an introduction by Guardian journalist Lucy Mangan; and a new collection of stories by Joan Aiken, featuring an introduction by novelist Kiran Millwood Hargrave.
Having worked in-house at Thames & Hudson, Russell went freelance after having children, mostly working within arts and heritage publishing, before setting up Manderley in 2020. “I’d had the idea for Manderley for a long while, so it’s slightly embarrassing that it took the global pandemic for me to do it. I found myself three months into the pandemic in 2020 with no work, because museums and galleries had closed,” she said.
“I had a moment where I thought, ‘I can either completely retrain or just bring all the strands of my career together so far’. I’ve worked in heritage publishing. I’ve worked in arts publishing with museums. I’ve been a bookseller, mostly at Daunt Books, while I was a student. It seemed like an opportunity to bring it all together. When I set up Manderley, it was literally at my kitchen table, while everyone else in my family was in their rooms on their computers. But it started coming together,” she says.
Russell used her own money to set up Manderley from her home in south London. She “took any editorial job she could” in 2021, and developed the press slowly, investing in it whenever she could find the money. “It was great, actually, because I took advantage of everyone being at home for lockdown to phone around and speak to people in the industry and get recommendations. I was quite lucky because I got to speak to some serious publishers who gave me some great advice. Some of them said ‘We think you’re completely crazy’."
She adds: “But I’ll always remember Jacques Testard from Fitzcarraldo, because he was so enthusiastic. He said, ‘Go for it, talk to this person or that person.’ His enthusiasm and the inspiration of his own story carried me forward.”
The books are designed by a freelance designer Russell has worked with since her Thames & Hudson days. Manderley titles are printed by Wales-based printers Gomer, which Russell was aware of because she worked with them to produce catalogues for the V&A and the British Museum. “Gomer is so invested in our titles, and they always want to sort of see them on the shelf afterwards,” she says.
The first book published by Manderley was Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stephenson in November 2021. “Amazingly, Alexander McCall Smith agreed to write the introduction. It ticked all the boxes because the illustration was by Ian McIntosh who, like McCall Smith, is also from Edinburgh. So, it brought that love of the city to the story, and the book sold so well I think we reprinted it four times,” says Russell.
In the past four years since setting up Manderley Press, Russell has doubled the number of titles published each year from three to six. The early focus of the business was on direct sales via her website (orders which she continues to hand-wrap and post directly to readers), and that continues to grow. She says sales have roughly doubled each year.
“What I’ve been really pleased about is that sales to the trade have also been growing – steadily increasing at more than 50% growth each year since the first title was published in November 2021,” she says.
“With each title I seek out opportunities for higher-margin revenue by producing a range of associated merchandise such as art prints, gift wrap and greetings cards, all linked to individual titles in our collection. I also seek out other opportunities for incremental revenue by stocking and selling signed copies of titles by some of those authors who have written introductions to our books, and in some cases selling vintage books and DVDs associated with specific titles on the Manderley Press list.”
Russell says she has found over the years that the formula works best if it has the name of the place in the title. “That’s why I decided to do the Mary Shelley in Bath, which is coming out next year,” she says.
A pharmacist’s daughter who hails from Whitby, where the family lived above the shop, Russell counts her years of bookselling and passion for retail for her ability to spot a forgotten title that will attract readers. “We’ve published 10 books so far, with the 11th coming out soon. I think I’ve wrapped about 5,000 books myself this year. Sometimes there’s a brilliant teenager who comes and helps me.”
Starting Manderley Press from her home meant Russell and her family had to live with a houseful of boxes that became rather untenable as the business grew. She has since hired some warehouse space, but the boxes have never entirely vanished from domestic life. “It’s become so successful I can’t really manage it all myself. I’ve been working with a PR, sales and marketing team. It feels quite exciting and grown up.”
In between planning and publishing schedules, Russell is always on the hunt for new titles. “Agents have started suggesting backlist titles by the authors’ estates they manage, which is really nice. Often I’ll choose books that I’ve either had on my shelf for years and loved, or I’ve come across them in the library. Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes was a book I had on loan from the library when lockdown started. So that was just a happy chance.”
