Tag: Championing authors

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

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

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

Barometer Rising

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

A Christmas Carol

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

Bleak House

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

A Bear Called Paddington

An early cover layout for A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond, published by Collins in 1958.
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

Charlotte’s Web

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

Doctor Zhivago

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

Native Son

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

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

Moby-Dick

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

Jane Eyre

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

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

An Armed Services Edition of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (1943).
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