A Christmas Carol

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

Bleak House

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

Stuart Little

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

In October 1936, Stanley Unwin, chairman of British publishers George Allen & Unwin (later acquired by HarperCollins), received a children’s book submission. More

A Light in the Attic

Classic collection of poems and illustrations by Shel Silverstein; ALA Notable Children’s Book. More

Garth Williams, Illustrator

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

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

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

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943), a story about growing up poor in turn-of-the-century Brooklyn, was originally an entry for a Harper & Brothers memoir contest. 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

Charlotte’s Web

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