1931: Pat and Bernard Zondervan start a religious publishing firm…
Pat and Bernard Zondervan start a religious publishing firm out of their mother’s farmhouse. 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
Collins Reference and Education
William Collins spent his earliest years teaching before starting his publishing venture in 1819. More
2017: HarperCollins celebrates its 200th anniversary…
HarperCollins Publishers celebrates its 200th anniversary. More
1836: Harper & Brothers begins publishing books for children
Harper & Brothers begins publishing books for children with the Fairy Book Collection. More
1992: HarperCollins begins publishing operations in India…
HarperCollins begins publishing operations in India, represented by Rupa & Co, a small independent publisher. In 2003, HarperCollins India enters a joint venture agreement with the Living Media group, the largest media conglomerate in India. More
Publishing Firsts: Collins Illustrated Pocket Classics
At the turn of the century, William Collins III combined innovative packaging and distribution with innovative aesthetics by creating shilling-priced illustrated paperbacks. 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
The Publisher of presidents
HarperCollins is the publisher of many United States presidents–beginning with the very first one. More
1923: The Harper Prize Novel is introduced as a competition to discover unknown authors…
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
Publishing Firsts: The Historical Romance Genre
At the time of its publication in 1972, nothing like Kathleen Woodiwiss’s The Flame and the Flower had ever been published. More
Letter from Stella Miles Franklin submitting her novel My Brilliant Career
Stella Miles Franklin submitted this letter along with the manuscript of her first novel, My Brilliant Career, to Angus & Robertson in Australia, in March 1899, when she was just nineteen years old. More
Bernie and Pat Zondervan outside their Grand Rapids headquarters
The publishing house of Zondervan was launched during the Great Depression (1931) by brothers Pat and Bernie Zondervan in the spare bedroom of a Michigan farmhouse. More
1952: Caedmon Audio is founded…
Caedmon Audio, the first company to sell audio versions of works by writers such as Dylan Thomas, e. e. cummings, and Robert Frost, is founded. More
1926: William Morrow is founded and publishes its first book…
William Morrow is founded and publishes its first book, On to Oregon! by Honoré Morrow. More
Pushing the Boundaries of Children’s Literature
Children’s books explored uncharted territory in the mid-1960s as Harper & Row began to champion boundary-pushing children’s and young adult books. More
Collins Operations during WWII
Collins maintained combined office and warehouse space at Bridewell Place in London for many years, and in 1917, its new London publishing office at 48 Pall Mall was complemented by printing works in Mayfair that included a state-of-the-art bindery, warehouse, and distribution center. More
1971: William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist is published…
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
2000: Gao Xingjian becomes the first Chinese author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature…
Gao Xingjian becomes the first Chinese author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature after HarperCollins Australia publishes his novel Soul Mountain. More
Riders of the Purple Sage
Often called “the most popular Western novel of all time,” this classic helped shape the Western genre. 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
1856: The first Collins Atlas is published
The first Collins Atlas is published. 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
1992: John Gray’s Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus is published…
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
1943: Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is published…
Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, a story about growing up poor in turn-of-the-century Brooklyn, shines a light on first- and second-generation Americans living in poverty. More
1839: Collins receives a license to publish the King James Version of the Bible
Collins receives a license to publish the King James Version of the Bible. More
2008: HarperCollins India publishes The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga…
HarperCollins India publishes The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, which wins the 2008 Man Booker Prize. More