Master and Commander

First book in O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series, widely regarded as the greatest series of historical novels ever written. 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

Mark Twain

In 1866, with mostly newspaper articles and other short works to his name, Mark Twain accepted an assignment from the Sacramento Union to produce a weekly column from Hawaii. More

Our Town

Pulitzer Prize–winning drama; hailed by Edward Albee as “The finest play ever written by an American.” More

Profiles in Courage

Harper & Brothers helped groom the image of a future president when it agreed in the mid-1950s to work with a young senator on a collection of biographical sketches about courageous American lawmakers. More

Amelia Bedelia

The first book featuring the now-classic, hilariously literal-minded character Amelia Bedelia. More

Eugene Exman and Martin Luther King

Shortly after the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 and ‘56, Harper & Brothers religious books editor Eugene Exman left New York City for Alabama and secured a meeting with Martin Luther King Jr. More

Moby-Dick

Often called the greatest American novel of all time. 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 Inklings

Clive Staples Lewis (better known as C. S. Lewis) loved nothing more than sitting in the back room of his favorite pub, The Eagle and Child, surrounded by his closest literary friends, including J. R. R. Tolkien. More

Jane Eyre

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