Tag: Championing authors

Charlotte’s Web

Charlotte’s Web
Considered a classic of children’s literature; a novel of friendship, love, life, and death. More

Social Change: Women Writers

Author Catharine M. Sedgwick (1832).
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

Tales of the City

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

Garth Williams, Illustrator

Marketing flyer promoting the 1946 publication of Little Fur Family, written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Garth Williams.
Garth Williams was a little-known but talented young illustrator when he was commissioned by Ursula Nordstrom, head of Harper’s Department of Books for Boys and Girls, to illustrate the classic Stuart Little by E. B. White. More

Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre
Brontë’s masterpiece of Gothic romance; a milestone title in the history of British feminist literature. More

Native Son

Native Son
Wright’s unsparing reflection on what it means to be black in America. More

Journey to Jo’burg

Journey to Jo’burg
Groundbreaking book set in South Africa during the apartheid era and banned by its government. More

Bleak House

Bleak House
Dickens’s tenth novel, often considered his finest; significantly influenced the development of mystery novels. More

The Giving Tree

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
Poignant, game-changing picture book for readers of all ages that has been a favorite for generations. More

The Hobbit

A letter from J. R. R. Tolkien to his editor regarding the first chapter of his “sequel” to The Hobbit, titled “A Long-expected Party”—which would become the first chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring.
In October 1936, Stanley Unwin, chairman of British publishers George Allen & Unwin (later acquired by HarperCollins), received a children’s book submission. More

Stuart Little

Stuart Little
White’s beloved classic about a small mouse on a big adventure is a perennial bestseller. More

To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird
Much-loved Pulitzer Prize–winning classic, voted by librarians across America as the best novel of the twentieth century. More

J.R.R. Tolkien and the Trilogy

J. R. R. Tolkien.
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