Tag: Championing authors

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

A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol
Dickens’s beloved classic of the meaning of Christmas that has inspired countless adaptations. More

Barometer Rising

Barometer Rising
The first novel by MacLennan, one of Canada’s most significant novelists of the mid-twentieth century. More

Native Son

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

The Birth of Perry Mason

Perry Mason author Erle Stanley Gardner pacing the floor of his study while working out a tough plot. One of his secretaries claimed Gardner sometimes paced 100 miles per book.
Head of William Morrow and Company (later acquired by HarperCollins) since the death of its founder in 1931, Thayer Hobson searched widely for promising new authors, often traveling to Europe in pursuit of his next big title. More

Jane Eyre

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

Doctor Zhivago

Doctor Zhivago
Collins was the first to publish this epic romantic drama by the Nobel Prize winner in English. More

Stuart Little

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

Herman Melville and Moby-Dick

The original agreement between Herman Melville and Harper & Brothers for Moby-Dick, dated September 12, 1851.
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

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

Ursula Nordstrom

Ursula Nordstrom.
When Anne Carroll Moore, the powerful and opinionated superintendent of children’s work at the New York Public Library, asked Harper & Brothers editor Ursula Nordstrom why she felt qualified to produce children’s books, Nordstrom said only this: “Well, I am a former child, and I haven’t forgotten a thing.” More