Publishers of books on social history and film studies

Chaplin Books is a new independent publishing house launched in 2010, specialising in books on social history and film studies. You can buy our titles direct from this website or order them from any UK bookshop or internet retailer. We are always looking to expand our lists, and welcome approaches from authors, particularly in the field of film studies.

The Night They Blitzed The Ritz

This is the Blitz story from a fresh new perspective - through the eyes of a small boy and his gang of streetwise Bomb Alley Kids. It was the worst of times for adults, thrust into the front line of the war by relentless night-bombing, with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. It was maybe the best of times for children, with every bombsite, aeroplane and wailing siren holding a promise of pleasurable terror. In this personal memoir, John Bull - a former News of the World columnist - perfectly captures the tragicomic, often farcical, events of everyday survival and the tribal stubbornness that stopped the Brits from 'chucking it in'.

Paperback, 128 pages, with 20 black and white photographs. £8.99
ISBN 9780956559500

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The Wonder of Woolies

Do you remember Melba chocolate, spud guns, Embassy records, pick 'n' mix, broken biscuits, Homemaker china, Californian Poppy perfume, and Ladybird children’s clothes? Then you will love the book that brings these, and many other memories, flooding back. The Wonder of Woolies is a celebration of that great British store - Woolworth's - in the words of people who worked and shopped there. In addition to memories from every corner of Britain, the book describes the rise of the '3d and 6d store' king, Frank Winfield Woolworth, and some of the dramatic events that marked Woolworth's history, such as the tragic fire at the Manchester store in 1979 and the bombing of the Deptford store in 1944.

Paperback, 200 pages, with 50 black and white and 20 colour photographs. £8.99
ISBN 9780955333453

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England’s Secret Weapon

This authoritative study examines the way Hollywood used Sherlock Holmes in a series of fourteen films that spanned the years of World War II in Europe, from The Hound of the Baskervilles in 1939 to Dressed to Kill in 1946. Basil Rathbone’s portrayal of Holmes has influenced every actor who has subsequently played this popular character on film, TV, stage and radio, yet the film series has, until now, been neglected in terms of detailed critical analysis. Though the first two films were set in the detective’s ‘true’ Victorian period, Holmes was then ‘updated’ and recruited to fight the Nazis. The book looks at the way the studio steered a careful course between modernising the detective and making sure he was still recognisable as the ‘old Holmes’. It combines academic rigor with an approachable style, and draws on many previously unseen archive documents.

Paperback, 264 pages with 50 black and white photographs, originally published by Middlesex University Press. £10
ISBN 978-1-9047507-1-0

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