William Collins

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

1908: Collins obtains New Zealand Post Office Box #1…

During a time of expansion for Collins in New Zealand, the company obtains New Zealand Post Office Box #1 (which it continues to use to this day) and moves to a new building on Wyndham Street, which at eight stories high, was then Auckland’s tallest building. More

From Printers to Publishers

James and John Harper began their business in 1817 primarily as printers, although they soon began to publish and sell original works. More

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

Judith Kerr: Beyond The Tiger Who Came to Tea

Collins author Judith Kerr may be best known in the UK for her classic children’s picture books The Tiger Who Came to Tea and Mog the Forgetful Cat, but she is also renowned for her powerful autobiographical novels about her childhood and young adulthood. More

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

From Clerk to Chairman of the Board

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

Science Fiction & Fantasy

HarperCollins’s connections to nascent science fiction and fantasy worlds began with works such as Edward Lytton Bulwer’s The Coming Race (1871), and H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds (1898) and The Invisible Man (1898). More

Ursula Nordstrom

When Anne Carroll Moore, the powerful and opinionated superintendent of children’s work at the New York Public Library, asked Harper & Brothers editor Ursula Nordstrom why she felt qualified to produce children’s books, Nordstrom said only this: “Well, I am a former child, and I haven’t forgotten a thing.” More

Inventing the Western

Zane Grey and A. B. Guthrie Jr. were considered two of the foremost writers on the American West. More