The Woman in White
One of the earliest works of detective fiction, this story caused a sensation with readers at the time. More
Middlemarch
Ranked number one in a 2015 BBC poll of the 100 greatest British novels. More
Marketing and publicity brochure for Charlotte’s Web
This 1963 marketing and publicity brochure for Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White includes a letter from White explaining how he got the idea for the story. More
J. B. Lippincott
Born in 1813 in New Jersey, Joshua Ballinger Lippincott became a bookseller shortly after he moved to Philadelphia at age 14. 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
The War of the Worlds
The much-adapted classic from “the father of science fiction.” More
1963: Maurice Sendak receives the Caldecott Medal for Where the Wild Things Are…
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak is published. It is awarded the 1964 Caldecott Medal. More
1927: Harper & Brothers signs Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World…
Harper & Brothers signs Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World. More
1960: The Pulitzer Prize–winning To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is published…
J. B. Lippincott publishes the Pulitzer Prize–winning To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, one of the most influential books on race in America, which goes on to sell more than 40 million copies. More
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez drew on his childhood experiences in Colombia when crafting the story of the fictional Buendía family in the classic One Hundred Years of Solitude. More
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
An American classic called “one of the books of the century” by the New York Public Library. More
1992: John Gray’s Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus is published…
John Gray’s Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus is published and becomes one of the bestselling nonfiction books of the 1990s, launching an era of gender and relationship dialogue. 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
Herman Melville and Moby-Dick
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
Little Bear
The very first I Can Read! book has sold more than one million copies. More
To Kill a Mockingbird
Much-loved Pulitzer Prize–winning classic, voted by librarians across America as the best novel of the twentieth century. More
Letter from Agatha Christie
This letter from Agatha Christie (here signing with her second married name, Mallowan) shows the close relationship she had with Collins publisher Billy Collins. More
1871: Harper’s Weekly serializes Middlemarch by Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot)
Harper’s Weekly serializes Middlemarch by Mary Ann Evans, who worked under the male pseudonym George Eliot. More
The Odyssey of Homer
Hailed as “the best translation there is of a great, perhaps the greatest, poet” (New York Times Book Review). More
Neil Gaiman
I read to travel, and to learn. More
1957: The I Can Read! series launches with the publication of Little Bear…
The I Can Read! series launches with the publication of Little Bear, written by Else Holmelund Minarik and illustrated by Maurice Sendak, and becomes the number one beginning reader series in the United States. More
Their Eyes Were Watching God
One of the most widely read and acclaimed novels in the canon of African-American literature. More
Michael Bond
I was brought up in a house where books were an essential part of the furnishings. More
And Then There Were None
The bestselling crime novel of all time. More
J.R.R. Tolkien and the Trilogy
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
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
Katherine Paterson
I read because I want more than one life, and books give me a limitless number of lives—lives that are different from the one I was born into. More
