WORLD-famous Wainwright guidebooks have reached the end of the road with publishers preparing to pull the plug on the legendary titles.

Michael Joseph part of The Penguin Group has said it proposes to revert existing publishing rights to the Wainwright family.

In a letter to The Westmorland Gazette, Penguin managing director Helen Fraser said declining sales meant it was hard to justify continuing them on the Michael Joseph list.

The company has until recently had just nine titles in print, out of an original 49. All other publishing rights were reverted to Alfred Wainwright's widow Betty in 2001.

His stepdaughter Jane King said the family had not received any formal notification and could not comment further at this stage.

The Westmorland Gazette had previously published the Wainwright classics for almost 30 years.

Chairman of the newly-formed Wainwright Society, broadcaster Eric Robson, said he was hopeful another publisher could be found, as interest was huge and global.

He said he was saddened that many of the world-renowned books hand written and meticulously illustrated - were now out of print.

"The market is flooded with walking books, not necessarily good ones. In my view, no one has done it better than AW. He didn't just produce routes, but encapsulated the spirit of the place.

"They are classics, as apposite now as they were in the 1950s. Mountains change over aeons, not decades. A bit of tweaking with the routes and they would be as relevant now as they ever were."

The chairman of BBC's Gardeners' Question Time, who knew and worked with AW, said he felt sure there was a publisher who would "nurture the books better than Michael Joseph did".

"They should never have been allowed to wither on the vine and go out of print.

"We are stuck with a fait accompli, so let's hope we get some positives out of it."

The first of AW's books, A Guide to the Eastern Fells, was published by Kendal printers Bateman and Hewitson in 1954. Wainwright sank £35 of his own savings into the project and went round the bookshops himself, selling the print run of 2,000.

The Kendal Borough Council treasurer spent 13 years on the original series of fell guides, tramping over the fells in all weathers at weekends, carrying raincoat, map and camera. Most of his fine, distinctive drawings were taken from his photographs.

Sales of his books topped one million in 1985.

Born in Blackburn, the stonemason's son was often taciturn with strangers. When he did speak his mind, it was with a bluntness which betrayed his Lancashire origins.

In Fellwanderer he described his first visit to the Lake District.

"I was utterly enslaved by all I saw here were no huge factories, but mountains; no stagnant canals, but sparkling crystal-clear rivers; no cinder paths, but beckoning tracks that climbed through bracken and heather to the silent fastnesses of the hills . that week changed my life."

January 10, 2003 15:00