Tag: Expanding literature

1854: Thomas Nelson becomes the first British publishing house with a branch in the U.S.

Thomas Nelson becomes the first British publishing house to have a branch in the United States when it opens an office at 131 Nassau Street in New York City. More

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

Amistad

HarperCollins’s Amistad Press is the oldest imprint devoted to titles for the African American market at any major New York publishing house. More

The Exorcist

The first horror story to reach number one on the New York Times bestseller list. More

1958: Collins publishes the first English translation of Doctor Zhivago…

Collins publishes the first English translation of Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. More

The Pre-Packaged Library

The Harper brothers created collections of titles that allowed readers to amass an entire library instead of buying just a single book. 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

Social Change: Sex in the 20th Century

In between the two world wars, Harper authors tackled the then taboo subject of sex. More

How Harlequin Became Romance

When Richard H.G. Bonnycastle, a former Arctic explorer with the Hudson Bay Company, launched Harlequin Books in Winnipeg in 1948, he had little interest in building a publishing empire around romance novels. More

1946: William Morrow establishes its first children’s imprint…

William Morrow establishes its first children’s imprint, Morrow Junior Books, and develops successful children’s author Beverly Cleary. More

Gordon Korman

I read to be astounded by other writers’ ideas. More

Gordon Korman

2015: HarperCollins expands into a global publisher…

HarperCollins expands from a primarily English-language publisher to one publishing in 17 languages, with operations in 18 countries around the world. More

2014: HarperCollins acquires Harlequin Enterprises…

HarperCollins acquires Harlequin Enterprises from Torstar. More

One Hundred Years of Solitude

This landmark of magical realism sparked a wave of interest in Central and South American literature. More

Tess of the d’Urbervilles

Major nineteenth-century English novel that challenged the sexual morals of late Victorian England. 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

1848: Harper & Brothers publishes the first American editions of the Brontë’s works

Harper & Brothers publishes the first American editions of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. 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

Textbook Publishing: Row, Peterson & Co.

Robert Row was a textbook author and teacher. More

Candy package with Timothy Findley’s plans for his novella You Went Away

Canadian author Timothy Findley’s only novella, You Went Away (1996), was based on his parents’ marriage. More

Handwritten letter from John Gray regarding his manuscript for Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

John Gray sent 330 pages of his manuscript for Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus to his editor Susan Moldow on September 25, 1991, accompanied by this handwritten note. More

1973: William Collins and Sons secures the rights to Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago…

William Collins and Sons secures the rights to Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, an eye-opening work that exposes in startling detail the horrors of the communist regime in Russia. More

Letter to Eleanor Roosevelt regarding a new autobiographical book

Harper editor and chairman of the board Cass Canfield sent this letter, dated April 10, 1951, to Eleanor Roosevelt... More

Letter recommending Sounder for publication

Harper editor Ferd Monjo wrote this letter to the head of the U.S. Harper Children’s division, Ursula Nordstrom, regarding a manuscript he had received in July 1968. More

Caedmon Records and Audiobooks

In 1952, Barbara Cohen and Marianne Roney, a pair of recent college graduates, wrote a letter to Welsh poet Dylan Thomas that contained an unusual business proposal. More

Internal memo from Collins Canada announcing a hot air balloon publicity stunt

To launch the new Canadian trade paperback imprint Totem, in September 1975, Collins Canada’s head of publicity Lucinda Vardey organized the release of hot air balloons over Toronto and neighboring suburbs. More

1978: Zondervan publishes the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible…

Zondervan publishes the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible, a contemporary English translation that provides an accurate and understandable alternative to the King James Version. More