About us

Eye Books was founded by Dan Hiscocks in 1996 to tell stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Early titles included: Frigid Women, by members of the first all-female expedition to the North Pole; Discovery Road, by the first cyclists to mountain-bike around the world without support; and The Boy Who Biked the World, Alastair Humphreys’ bestselling children’s trilogy based on his own round-the-world adventure.

Broadening in scope, our non-fiction list now includes books such as: At the Deep End, the autobiography of Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai; The Story of Trojan Records, the definitive history of the iconic music label; Rosalind Russell’s study of refugees from South Sudan, The End of Where We Begin (winner of the Moore Prize); Alastair Humphreys’ doorstep exploration manual Local (shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize).

Lightning is our newer fiction imprint. Our titles include stellar writing from Australia and New Zealand, including Ryan O’Neill’s Their Brilliant Careers (winner of the Prime Minister’s Literary Award), Emily Maguire’s An Isolated Incident (shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award) and Catherine Chidgey’s The Beat of the Pendulum.

Our home-grown prize nominees include Ray Robinson’s The Mating Habits of Stags and James Corbett’s The Outsiders (Portico Prize), Hilary Taylor’s Sea Defences (New Angle Prize, Paul Torday Memorial Prize), Katharine Quarmby’s The Low Road (New Angle Prize), Adam Macqueen’s Beneath the Streets (Polari Prize), and George Harrison’s Season and Jim Cockin’s Ghost Tide (both East Anglian Book Awards).

Other high-profile fiction authors include Nicola May, Dan Rhodes, Elinor Lipman, Peter Bradshaw, Antony Johnston, Simon Edge and Josh Berry.

As a small publisher we are able to make decisions quickly, and not by committee. We are small and nimble enough to take risks, and we pride ourselves on publishing first-class work that has been overlooked by the industry mainstream. In 2022 we were the Midlands regional winner of Small Press of the Year at the British Book Awards.

In 2025 we set up Wilton Square Books, as part of the Eye Books Group, with the initial aim of providing a safe and secure home for authors previously published by Unbound, after that publisher went into administration.