Tag: Expanding literature

Dan Harris

I used to read to lead a lot of fiction, mostly for the escape—to be transported to other places and times. More
Dan Harris

Dan Harris

HarperOne

The current HarperOne logo.
In 1977, a handful of Harper & Row employees from the Religious Books Department moved from New York to San Francisco to focus on titles pertaining to mind, body, and spirit. More

The Zondervan brothers

The Zondervan brothers
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

William Collins

Charles Chalmers and Rev. Thomas Chalmers.
Born on the south side of Glasgow in the village of Pollokshaws in 1789, William Collins left school to work as a weaver and clerk in a local cotton mill. More

From Clerk to Chairman of the Board

An 1885 letter from Henry Hoyns to the Harper brothers requesting a raise after being promoted to the stock desk.
One summer day in 1884, Horatio Harper, grandson of founder John Harper, began talking with a bright young boy during his regular steamboat commute from Long Island to Manhattan. More

The Pre-Packaged Library

An advertisement for the Collins Select Library of Christian Authors, which ran in The School Newspaper on January 2, 1882.
The Harper brothers created collections of titles that allowed readers to amass an entire library instead of buying just a single book. More

Thomas Nelson: The Beginning

Title page of the Thomas Nelson edition of the Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1860).
In 1800, an upstart 20-year-old printer named Thomas Neilson (who later changed his name to Nelson) set off a firestorm of controversy throughout the Scottish publishing world by offering something never before seen in Great Britain: classic books produced and printed for “the common man.” More

George Eliot

A snippet of the first installment of Middlemarch by George Eliot, which was serialized in Harper’s Weekly (December 16, 1871).
Mary Anne Evans, born in 1819, led a turbulent life that often broke with Victorian social norms. 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

Angus & Robertson in Australia

The Angus & Robertson bookshop in Sydney (1916).
Ten thousand miles from his homeland, Scotsman David Mackenzie Angus paid £50 to open a small bookshop on Market Street in Sydney, Australia. More

Publishing Firsts: The VendAvon

The VendAvon.
Chips, cookies, sodas–and books–from a vending machine. Avon’s entertaining comic books—western, horror, romance, war, science fiction, and gangster titles, mostly—appealed to readers of all ages from 1945 through the mid-1950s. More