Paper Argosies Publishing was set up in 2024 by Robert Lacey.
The name was inspired by writer and illustrator Claud Lovat Fraser. Writing from the trenches in 1916, the painter-turned-poet visualised children at home making paper boats to float imaginary treasure galleons into the lakes and rivulets of the English countryside:
O master mariners! whose seas
Are millers’ pond and parson’s stream,
Who send your paper argosies
To lands the further side of dream . . .
In this scenario, Lovat suggested, the mysteries and morals of nursery rhymes can be seen as veritable treasure fleets of rhyming magic – and his metaphor suggested to me, in turn, the perfect name for Robert’s own, new publishing house.