Neil Gaiman
I read to travel, and to learn. More
1895: Mark Twain signs an exclusive contract with Harper & Brothers
Mark Twain signs an exclusive contract with Harper & Brothers, which serializes Joan of Arc in its periodicals and publishes it as a book one year later. More
Charlotte’s Web
Considered a classic of children’s literature; a novel of friendship, love, life, and death. More
Letter from Katharine White (E. B. White’s wife) regarding Stuart Little’s illustrations
This letter from E. B. White’s wife, Katharine White, to Ursula Nordstrom, head of the U.S. Harper Children’s division, expresses her husband’s excitement... More
Amistad
HarperCollins’s Amistad Press is the oldest imprint devoted to titles for the African American market at any major New York publishing house. More
Our Town
Pulitzer Prize–winning drama; hailed by Edward Albee as “The finest play ever written by an American.” More
Doctor Zhivago
Collins was the first to publish this epic romantic drama by the Nobel Prize winner in English. More
Bernard Cornwell
The most magical phrase I knew as a child was “Once upon a time” because those four words meant a story was coming. More
Bernard Cornwell
Born in London in 1944, Bernard Cornwell grew up in Essex and, after a stint as a teacher, moved on to the BBC, where he took a job as a producer in Northern Ireland. More
Letter from “Padington”
Signed with a paw print, this letter from “Padington” (circa 1966) was sent to Australian booksellers and sales staff, encouraging them to sell the latest Paddington title. More
The Fellowship of the Ring
First volume in The Lord of the Rings series, which has sold more than 100 million copies. More
Mark Twain
In 1866, with mostly newspaper articles and other short works to his name, Mark Twain accepted an assignment from the Sacramento Union to produce a weekly column from Hawaii. More
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
A child’s perspective as a refugee during the rise of Nazism; now a modern classic. More
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez drew on his childhood experiences in Colombia when crafting the story of the fictional Buendía family in the classic One Hundred Years of Solitude. More
Kitten’s First Full Moon
Its brief text, large type, and luminescent pictures evoke the classic picture book era; Caldecott Medal winner. More
1860: Harper & Brothers enters into the crime fiction genre
Harper & Brothers pay Wilkie Collins £750 for The Woman in White, which heralds the firm's entry into the crime fiction genre. More
The Butterfly Lion
A moving story of enduring friendship, this is the award-winning favorite from a master storyteller. More
Agatha Christie at her Devonshire home
Agatha Christie, known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime, is the best-selling novelist in history, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. More
Social Change: Women Writers
In the mid-late 1800s, Harper & Brothers reprinted several milestone titles in the history of British feminist literature as well as the global canon, such as Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847), Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), and Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), as well as George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1872). More
Herman Melville and Moby-Dick
Harper & Brothers turned down Herman Melville’s first book, Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life, and it was released to strong sales by another publisher. 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
Brochure from the 2009 celebration of Debbie Macomber’s fictional town of Cedar Cove
In August 2009, the real town of Port Orchard, Washington (bestselling romance author Debbie Macomber’s hometown), turned itself into Macomber’s fictional town of Cedar Cove for five days... More
The Graveyard Book
Winner of the Newbery Medal, the Carnegie Medal, and the Hugo Award for Best Novel. More
Stuart Little
White’s beloved classic about a small mouse on a big adventure is a perennial bestseller. More
1848: Harper & Brothers publishes the first American editions of the Brontë’s works
Harper & Brothers publishes the first American editions of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. 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
1891: Harper & Brothers purchases rights to Conan Doyle’s Adventures of Sherlock Holmes…
Enabled by the 1891 International Copyright Treaty, Harper & Brothers purchases the rights to Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. More