To Kill a Mockingbird
Much-loved Pulitzer Prize–winning classic, voted by librarians across America as the best novel of the twentieth century. More
Where the Wild Things Are
This winner of the 1964 Caldecott Medal changed the face of children’s literature. 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
1978: Harper & Row publishes Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series…
Harper & Row publishes the first book in Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series after it is serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle. The series highlights gay issues and becomes a cultural icon for generations of readers. More
Doctor Zhivago
Collins was the first to publish this epic romantic drama by the Nobel Prize winner in English. More
Pushing the Boundaries of Children’s Literature
Children’s books explored uncharted territory in the mid-1960s as Harper & Row began to champion boundary-pushing children’s and young adult books. More
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
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
A child’s perspective as a refugee during the rise of Nazism; now a modern classic. More
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The philosophical classic that inspired millions struggling to find meaning in the modern world. 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
1943: Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is published…
Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, a story about growing up poor in turn-of-the-century Brooklyn, shines a light on first- and second-generation Americans living in poverty. More
Alistair MacLean signing books
The young Alistair MacLean in 1957 signs a book during a promotional event for The Guns of Navarone. 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
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
Stride Toward Freedom
Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s memoir of the Montgomery bus boycott. More
One Hundred Years of Solitude
This landmark of magical realism sparked a wave of interest in Central and South American literature. More
A Bear Called Paddington
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
The New Kid on the Block
Prelutsky was named America’s first Children’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. More
2017: HarperCollins celebrates its 200th anniversary…
HarperCollins Publishers celebrates its 200th anniversary. More
1937: Zora Neale Hurston’s masterpiece, Their Eyes Were Watching God is published…
J. B. Lippincott publishes Zora Neale Hurston’s masterpiece, Their Eyes Were Watching God. More
Moby-Dick
Often called the greatest American novel of all time. More
Charlotte’s Web
Considered a classic of children’s literature; a novel of friendship, love, life, and death. More
Patricia MacLachlan
I read as a child to find out what I thought, what I wished for, and what scared me. More
Little House on the Prairie
Third book in the award-winning Little House series, which has sold more than 34 million copies. More
Building Literary Identities: Canada, Australia, India
In the mid-1800s, William Collins took his UK publishing business international–from the Americas, through Australia, to Africa. More
1923: The Harper Prize Novel is introduced as a competition to discover unknown authors…
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
Stuart Little
White’s beloved classic about a small mouse on a big adventure is a perennial bestseller. More