A publishing company under the name The Wakefield Press was founded in 1942 by Adelaide bookseller Harry Muir, owner of Beck Book Company Limited in Pulteney Street.. His intention was to publish small, historical monographs which he believed would otherwise go unread. The company's first publication was A Checklist of Ex-Libris Literature Published in Australia, owing to Muir's interest in bookplates. The press operated out of the bookshop from the 1940s to 1960s. In the 1980s, the state government re-established the name as Wakefield Press, as part of the state's sesquicentenary celebrations, and a series of histories was published. As proprietor of the monthly cultural magazine the Adelaide Review, Christopher Pearson bought the name of the Wakefield Press from the South Australian government and operated the company from 1986 to 1988. Michael Bollen, who had worked with Pearson, took over the company in 1989, with Stephanie Johnston buying in a year or so later. They moved to premises in The Parade West, Kent Town, where they stayed until relocation to Mile End in August–September 2014.
Current management
under the directorship of Michael Bollen, Wakefield publishes 35-40 titles each year on a diverse range of topics, including literary and popular fiction, young adult fiction and a range of non-fiction topics. They retain their focus on Australian authors and topics, particularly South Australian. They have boosted their focus on young adult fiction, with editor Margot Lloyd as publisher of the Young Adult list. They successfully launched Making Friends with Alice Dyson by Adelaide first-time author Poppy Nwosu in 2019. The management team believe that they can take risks that larger companies, being controlled by their marketing departments, cannot take. They have a backlist of around 500 titles, and a growing e-book list.
An Unsentimental Bloke: The life and work of C.J. Dennis, by Philip Butterss won the National Biography Award in 2015.
Places Women Make: Unearthing the contribution of women to our cities, by Jane Jose won the 2016 Bates Smart Award for Architecture in Media.
Stephen Orr, who has been longlisted and shortlisted for several literary awards over his long career with Wakefield, was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award for the second time in 2016, for The Hands.
Many of Wakefield's books have achieved Australian bestseller status, including The Vanished Land, by Richard Zachariah, The Home of the Blizzard, by Sir Douglas Mawson, One Magic Square, by Lolo Houbein, Behind the Veil, by Lydia Laube, Your Brick Oven, by Russell Jeavons, and Mallee Boys.
