Transworld/Random Merger

Gill Evans, head of publishing at Random House Children's Books, has lost her job in the merger of Random House Children's Books with Transworld. Appointed from Egmont two years ago, Evans has been responsible for restructuring the Random House list, creating new fiction strands and especially for repackaging the backlist, including classics such as Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons and Erich Kastner's Emil and the Detectives, in preparation for the merger.

With the merger of the two lists and the relocation of Random House Children's Books to Transworld's office in Ealing (on the outskirts of London), there is no longer a discrete role for Evans. Philippa Dickinson, managing director of Random House Children's Books, will assume overall responsibility for the publishing program; she paid tribute to Evans for her "boundless energy, professionalism and enthusiasm for children's publishing."

The new children's division unites the Random House imprints—Jonathan Cape, Hutchinson, Bodley Head and Red Fox—with Transworld's Doubleday, Corgi and David Fickling Books. Anne Eaton, previously editorial director of Doubleday Fiction, has now been promoted to publisher, fiction.