Welcome to FONTANA, a dynamic new fiction imprint of William Collins, where the classic and the contemporary sit side by side.
Fontana is a heritage colophon, once home to the biggest and brightest storytellers. First launched in 1953, it published work by Joy Adamson, Arthur Bryant, Agatha Christie, Joan Fleming, Hammond Innes, C.S. Lewis, Alistair MacLean, Herman Melville, Patrick O’Brian, Boris Pasternak, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Noel Streatfeild, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and Eric Williams. In 1970, Fontana Modern Masters was launched, a series of pocket guides on writers, thinkers and theorists who shaped the intellectual landscape of the 20th century. The series was edited by Frank Kermode and became famous for their abstract geometric covers.
Re-launched in 2025, Fontana of today aims to publish the very best of intelligent storytelling with popular appeal, from brilliantly written genre novels through to plot-driven literary fiction. It is informed by its rich history and by the best-in-class publishing of its sister imprints, William Collins and 4th Estate, but it’s also a bold new imprint that has its eye firmly trained on the contemporary market.
Just like the Fontana of the last century, our fiction is broad in scope and crosses the commercial-literary divide. However, our books are united by an emphasis on big ideas, big plot and stylish prose. We’re looking for stories that feel classic and timeless, regardless of their period and setting. Their emphasis on plot means that Fontana books will usually be working (even if inventively or subversively) within a genre or will have an element of genre at their heart, be that a gripping spy story; a thorny crime case; a sprawling mystery or quest; an ingenious speculative concept; a historical or lightly fantastical world superbly conjured.
Launch Titles
Bestselling biographer and Jane Austen expert Paula Byrne has answered a question she has long been asked: ‘How, if Jane Austen never fell in love herself, could she write so convincingly about being in love? Six Weeks by the Sea is rooted in historical fact and tells the story of Austen’s summer holiday by the seaside, filled with unlikely romance.
Russian historian Catherine Merridale’s Moscow Underground introduces readers to Anton Belkin, criminal investigator, in a gripping novel of life, death and politics set on the brink of Stalin’s great purges. Moscow’s glittering new subway is under construction. But futures cannot be created without digging up the past. Russia’s leaders want to build a glorious Soviet capital but find themselves held in a fatal grip of history, old mud and bones.
Winner of the 2021 Joseph Conrad literary award and European Union prize for literature finalist Victoria Amelina’s Dom’s Dream Kingdom transports readers into a story set in Lviv, a city with a brutal history and where the silences about past wars and mass murders are so unbearable that only an abandoned dog can trace the secrets and “speak” for the people who still cannot speak for themselves. The novel is anchored in the question of how we experience home, especially as Ukraine – home for Dom and the author Amelina – is currently being destroyed.
The History of Fontana
In 1953, FONTANA Books debuted as the paperback imprint of William Collins, Sons & Co Ltd, publishing work by Joy Adamson, Arthur Bryant, Agatha Christie, Joan Fleming, Hammond Innes, C.S. Lewis, Alistair MacLean, Herman Melville, Patrick O’Brian, Boris Pasternak, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Noel Streatfeild, Jules Verne, HG Wells and Eric Williams. In 1970, Fontana Modern Masters was launched, a series of pocket guides on writers, thinkers and theorists who shaped the intellectual landscape of the 20th century. The series was edited by Frank Kermode and became famous for their abstract geometric covers.
The new FONTANA logo is adapted by Art Director Jo Thomson from an original 1970s Mike Dempsey design. The colophon emphasises both William Collins’ continuity and evolution as a best-in-class publisher.
