Overlook Press, The

The Overlook Press is an independent general-interest publisher, founded in 1971. The publishing program consists of approximately 100 new books per year, roughly divided between hardcovers and trade paperbacks. The list is eclectic, with areas of strength in fiction, history, biography, drama, design, and other visual media. The house was launched by Peter Mayer as a home for distinguished books new and older often “overlooked” by larger houses. At the time Mayer was at the helm of one of them, Avon, and would go on to a twenty-year tenure as Penguin’s CEO in London. With his father Alfred, a retired glove manufacturer, Mayer set up the Overlook Press in 1971, supervising business from Manhattan in his off hours, while Fredy ran the upstate operation, picturesquely housed in an old apple shed on Overlook Mountain in Woodstock. Milestone books in those early years ranged from Graphic Design by Milton Glaser and Raymond Loewy’s Industrial Design, to the medieval martial arts treatise turned business bestseller, A Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Mushashi.