Tag: Championing authors

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

Journey to Jo’burg

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

Moby-Dick

Moby Dick
Often called the greatest American novel of all time. 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

Doctor Zhivago

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

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 Light in the Attic

A Light in the Attic
Classic collection of poems and illustrations by Shel Silverstein; ALA Notable Children’s Book. 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

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

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

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

Charlotte’s Web

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

The Woman in White

The Woman in White
One of the earliest works of detective fiction, this story caused a sensation with readers at the time. More