J.R.R. Tolkien and the Trilogy

Sir Stanley Unwin, chairman of British publishers George Allen & Unwin (later acquired by HarperCollins), originally rejected the 9,250-page manuscript of The Lord of the Rings, the sequel to J. R. R. Tolkien’s moderately successful (at the time) The Hobbit, as it was too long, and the author would make a deal with the publisher only if they also agreed to take another of his unfinished books. 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

Michael Chabon

The first writer that I really fell in love with was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in particular his Sherlock Holmes stories, and the first story that I ever wrote was a Sherlock Holmes story. 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

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

Pilgrim

A finalist for the Giller Prize and a Canadian bestseller that surpassed the author’s own impressive sales records. 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

A Game of Thrones

First volume in the internationally bestselling series that has sold upward of 70 million copies. More

To Kill a Mockingbird

When J. B. Lippincott (later acquired by HarperCollins) editor Therese (Tay) von Hohoff saw the first draft of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), she saw a promising story, but one in need of some reshaping and editing. More

The Dispossessed

The classic utopian science fiction; winner of the Hugo, Locus, and Nebula Awards. More

Tales of the City

First book in Maupin’s acclaimed and groundbreaking series documenting San Francisco’s underground and gay culture. More