HarperCollins Publishers

Publishing Firsts: The VendAvon

Chips, cookies, sodas–and books–from a vending machine. Avon’s entertaining comic books—western, horror, romance, war, science fiction, and gangster titles, mostly—appealed to readers of all ages from 1945 through the mid-1950s. More

1972: Avon launches the historical romance genre…

Kathleen E. Woodiwiss Author of Shanna. The Flame and the Flower. (Cover)

Avon launches the historical romance genre when it publishes Kathleen Woodiwiss’s The Flame and the Flower, a historical romance with a strong female lead and sexual situations that go a step beyond the tame romances of earlier eras. More

Eloisa James

The simple answer is that I love a happy ending. More

Eloisa James

Publishing Firsts: The Historical Romance Genre

Two classic Avon romance titles, Sweet Savage Love by Rosemary Rogers (1974) and Shanna by Kathleen Woodiwiss (1977).

At the time of its publication in 1972, nothing like Kathleen Woodiwiss’s The Flame and the Flower had ever been published. More

200 Years of HarperCollins Publishers

HarperCollins Publishers began as J. & J. Harper, a small family printing shop run by brothers James and John Harper in New York City in March 1817. More

Social Change: Sex in the 20th Century

An advertisement for Is Sex Necessary? by James Thurber and E. B. White, published in The New York Times on January 19, 1930.

In between the two world wars, Harper authors tackled the then taboo subject of sex. More

Crime & Mystery At HarperCollins

The Case of the Velvet Claws by Erle Stanley Gardner (William Morrow, 1933) and The Corpse in the Green Pyjamas by R. A. J. Walling (Avon Books, 1941).

In 1860, Harper & Brothers had paid Wilkie Collins £750 for The Woman in White, which heralded the publisher’s entry into the crime and mystery genre. More

1941: Avon Books is established…

Here are the NEW, Fast Sedlling Avon Pocket size Book. Photocopy of a newspaper add from 1941.

Avon Books is established by New York businessman Joseph Meyers in association with Edna B. Williams. Now renowned for widely popularizing the historical romance category, the publisher originally begins with a focus on paperback reprints. 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

1999: William Morrow, Avon, Ecco Press, Amistad and 4th Estate are acquired…

HarperCollins acquires William Morrow, mass market romance imprint Avon, independent publisher Ecco Press, and Amistad Press, the pre-eminent publisher of African-American authors. A year later Collins acquires independent press 4th Estate. More

Cally Taylor

When I get an idea for a novel the fizz of excitement I feel is electrifying. More

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