In 1860, Harper & Brothers had paid Wilkie Collins £750 for The Woman in White, which heralded the publisher’s entry into the crime and mystery genre. 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
Harper & Brothers releases a series of 12 Bubble Books, the first-ever book and phonograph record “bundle,” featuring nursery rhymes like “Jack and Jill” and “Simple Simon.” More
Bernie and Pat Zondervan (founders of religious publishing firm Zondervan) in their first store in Grand Rapids in 1933, shortly before they began publishing books. More
At the turn of the century, William Collins III combined innovative packaging and distribution with innovative aesthetics by creating shilling-priced illustrated paperbacks. More
Virginia Kirkus, inaugural department editor of Harper’s Department of Books for Boys and Girls, launches Laura Ingalls Wilder with the publication of Little House in the Big Woods.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
The Harper Prize Novel is introduced as a competition to discover unknown authors, and receives more than 700 submissions in its first year. The first winner, The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson, is later awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel (1924). More
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