Harper & Brothers publishes Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy, which wins the Pulitzer Prize in 1957 and helps propel the young senator to the White House. More
Collins is the first to publish a series of illustrated, shilling-priced pocket size classics with the introduction of Collins Illustrated Pocket Classics. Included in this series are a maroon cloth-bound David Copperfield, many other Charles Dickens favorites, Sir Walter Scott’s Kenilworth, George Eliot’s Adam Bede, and Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley. More
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
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
Born in 1898 in Belfast, Clive Staples Lewis lost his faith in Christianity at a young age after his mother died and he was sent away to boarding school. More
“Queen of Crime” Agatha Christie joins the house of Collins, and two years later publishes her seminal Hercule Poirot novel, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.More
Publisher George Allen & Unwin, later purchased by HarperCollins, publishes the 9,250-page manuscript of The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien. More
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
Signed with a paw print, this letter from “Padington” (circa 1966) was sent to Australian booksellers and sales staff, encouraging them to sell the latest Paddington title. More
When J. B. Lippincott (later acquired by HarperCollins) editor Therese (Tay) von Hohoff saw the first draft of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), she saw a promising story, but one in need of some reshaping and editing. More
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 first Beginner Books by Dr. Seuss are published by Collins in the UK. This series includes The Cat in the Hat (which had been previously published by Collins in 1958 and was an immediate success) and Green Eggs and Ham.More
This letter from E. B. White’s wife, Katharine White, to Ursula Nordstrom, head of the U.S. Harper Children’s division, expresses her husband’s excitement... More
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
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
William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist becomes the first horror story to reach number one on the New York Times bestseller list and helps initiate the modern horror film movement. More