Born in 1898 in Belfast, Clive Staples Lewis lost his faith in Christianity at a young age after his mother died and he was sent away to boarding school. More
In October 1936, Stanley Unwin, chairman of British publishers George Allen & Unwin (later acquired by HarperCollins), received a children’s book submission. More
The Harper Prize Novel is introduced as a competition to discover unknown authors, and receives more than 700 submissions in its first year. The first winner, The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson, is later awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel (1924). More
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
William Collins and Sons purchases the religious publishing firm of Geoffrey Bles, Ltd., gaining the rights to the works of C. S. Lewis, including his Chronicles of Narnia fantasy books. More
In 1958, an editor at Collins named Barbara Ker Wilson received a manuscript submission about a talking bear, which she opened with “initial suspicion” —as the publisher had received many other proposals featuring humanized animals that “are invariably either whimsy-whamsy, written down, or filled with adult innuendoes.” More
Harper & Brothers publishes Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy, which wins the Pulitzer Prize in 1957 and helps propel the young senator to the White House. More
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