HarperCollins Publishers

Agatha Christie

The house of Collins acquired “Queen of Crime” Agatha Christie after she disagreed with her former publisher over the spelling of “coco”/”cocoa” in her first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. More

Sabriel

A revolutionary story that made Nix a rising star in the fantasy genre. More

Letter from C. S. Lewis

In this letter to Collins publisher Billy Collins, dated November 1954, C. S. Lewis—author of The Chronicles of Narnia series, Mere Christianity, and The Screwtape Letters, among others—outlines what he sees as his three types of “literary output”: “A. Religious and General. B. Fiction. C. Academic.” More

Science Fiction & Fantasy

HarperCollins’s connections to nascent science fiction and fantasy worlds began with works such as Edward Lytton Bulwer’s The Coming Race (1871), and H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds (1898) and The Invisible Man (1898). More

Letter from Arnold Lobel regarding Frog and Toad Are Friends

This handwritten letter from Arnold Lobel to Ursula Nordstrom, head of the Harper Children’s division in the U.S., accompanied the submission of his manuscript for the now-classic Frog and Toad Are Friends. More

Riders of the Purple Sage

Often called “the most popular Western novel of all time,” this classic helped shape the Western genre. More

1993: Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher publishes The Downing Street Years…

Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years.

Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher publishes The Downing Street Years, which recounts her eleven and a half years at London’s 10 Downing Street, the official prime minister’s residence, with HarperCollins. More

What Do People Do All Day?

Over 100 million Scarry books have sold worldwide; a favorite in his classic Busytown series. More

Black Boy

A powerful and eloquent autobiography that has sold more than a million copies since publication. More

Original editorial correspondence regarding Joni Eareckson Tada

A diving accident in 1967 left Joni Eareckson, then seventeen, a quadriplegic in a wheelchair, without the use of her hands. More

The Hobbit

In October 1936, Stanley Unwin, chairman of British publishers George Allen & Unwin (later acquired by HarperCollins), received a children’s book submission. More

Original artwork suggested by Syd Hoff for Danny and the Dinosaur

Illustrator Syd Hoff sent these sketches to Ursula Nordstrom, head of the U.S. Harper Children’s division, as suggestions for the now-classic Danny and the Dinosaur. More

Danny and the Dinosaur

I Can Read! classic that was named a 1958 New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year. More

The Graveyard Book

Winner of the Newbery Medal, the Carnegie Medal, and the Hugo Award for Best Novel. More

The Fellowship of the Ring

First volume in The Lord of the Rings series, which has sold more than 100 million copies. More

Profiles in Courage

Harper & Brothers helped groom the image of a future president when it agreed in the mid-1950s to work with a young senator on a collection of biographical sketches about courageous American lawmakers. More

1860: Harper & Brothers enters into the crime fiction genre

The Woman in White. A Novel. By Wilkie Sollins, author of

Harper & Brothers pay Wilkie Collins £750 for The Woman in White, which heralds the firm's entry into the crime fiction genre. More

1871: Harper’s Weekly serializes Middlemarch by Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot)

Harper’s Weekly serializes Middlemarch by Mary Ann Evans, who worked under the male pseudonym George Eliot. More

Ursula Nordstrom

When Anne Carroll Moore, the powerful and opinionated superintendent of children’s work at the New York Public Library, asked Harper & Brothers editor Ursula Nordstrom why she felt qualified to produce children’s books, Nordstrom said only this: “Well, I am a former child, and I haven’t forgotten a thing.” More

Divergent

First book in the Divergent trilogy, which has sold more than 32 million copies worldwide. More

Sounder

Newbery Award–winning book that became an influential children’s work on race and class. More

Candy package with Timothy Findley’s plans for his novella You Went Away

Canadian author Timothy Findley’s only novella, You Went Away (1996), was based on his parents’ marriage. More

Social Change: Civil Rights

A page from the Fall 1937 Harper & Brothers catalog touting This Is My Story by Eleanor Roosevelt.

Beginning with This Is My Story (1937), Harper & Brothers published many works by Eleanor Roosevelt that promoted civil rights and the need for government action, including This I Remember (1949), On My Own (1958), and Tomorrow Is Now (1963). More

Tag: Author relationships