Victor Gollancz Ltd () was a major British book publishing house of the twentieth century and continues to publish science fiction and fantasy titles as an imprint of Orion Publishing Group. Gollancz was founded in 1927 by Victor Gollancz, and specialised in the publication of high-quality literature, nonfiction, and popular fiction, including crime, detective, mystery, thriller, and science fiction. Upon Gollancz's death in 1967, ownership passed to his daughter, Livia, who in 1989 sold it to Houghton Mifflin. Three years later in October 1992, Houghton Mifflin sold Gollancz to the publishing house Cassell & Co. Cassell and its parent company Orion Publishing Group were acquired by Hachette in 1996, and in December 1998 the merged Orion/Cassell group turned Gollancz into its science fiction/fantasy imprint. Origins as a political house Gollancz was left-inclined in politics and a supporter of socialist movements. This is reflected in some of the call for the books he published. Victor Gollancz commissioned George Orwell to write about the urban working class in the North of England; the result was The Road to Wigan Pier. His break with Orwell came when he declined to publish Orwell's account of the Spanish Civil War, Homage to Catalonia, the pair having drifted apart on political grounds. He did publish The Red Army Moves by Geoffrey Cox on the Winter War, which was critical of the Soviet attack on Finland, but also foresaw that the Red Army would defeat the Germans. He also published works by German exiles, such as Hilde Meisel. Gollancz was the original publisher of a number of authors and their books including: George Orwell with Down and Out in Paris and London in 1933 Alfred Ayer with Language, Truth and Logic in 1936 A. J. Cronin with The Citadel in 1937 Daphne du Maurier with Rebecca in 1938 Kingsley Amis with Lucky Jim in 1953 Colin Wilson with The Outsider in 1956 John le Carré with Call for the Dead in 1961 E. P. Thompson with The Making of the English Working Class in 1963 Anthony Price with The Labyrinth Makers in 1971. Many of Gollancz's books were published in one of their familiar house dust jackets, of which the most famous was bright yellow, with the title and author rendered in a vibrant, bold typography. The Left Book Club, the first book club in the UK, was a publishing group pioneered by Gollancz that exerted a