Tag: Genre

Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451
Though set in a dystopian world without books, Bradbury’s most famous work has never gone out of print. More

Science Fiction & Fantasy

The 2nd Avon Fantasy Reader (1947).
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

Jacqueline Winspear

I read because I love language, the way the joining of words and the rhythm of a story can make me laugh, cry, or take me out of my world or immerse me in the lives of others. More
Jacqueline Winspear

Jacqueline Winspear

The Woman in White

The Woman in White
One of the earliest works of detective fiction, this story caused a sensation with readers at the time. More

Flashman

Flashman
When this novel was first published, many critics mistakenly accepted it as a genuine historical memoir. More

Brave New World

Brave New World
Huxley’s best-known novel; a prophetic classic of speculative fiction that continues to resonate. More

1941: Avon Books is established…

Here are the NEW, Fast Sedlling Avon Pocket size Book. Photocopy of a newspaper add from 1941.
Avon Books is established by New York businessman Joseph Meyers in association with Edna B. Williams. Now renowned for widely popularizing the historical romance category, the publisher originally begins with a focus on paperback reprints. More

The Birth of Perry Mason

Perry Mason author Erle Stanley Gardner pacing the floor of his study while working out a tough plot. One of his secretaries claimed Gardner sometimes paced 100 miles per book.
Head of William Morrow and Company (later acquired by HarperCollins) since the death of its founder in 1931, Thayer Hobson searched widely for promising new authors, often traveling to Europe in pursuit of his next big title. More

How Harlequin Became Romance

The Hospital in Buwambo by Anne Vinton, Harlequin’s first reprint (1957) of a Mills & Boon 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

George R. R. Martin

The Collectors’ Preview Edition of A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin, Book One of A Song of Ice and Fire.
It was in 1993 that George R. R. Martin–already an acclaimed author of science fiction and horror novels, and well known for his work in Hollywood as a screenwriter on The Twilight Zone and Beauty and the Beast–decided he needed a broader outlet for his creativity and conceived of A Song of Ice and Fire, a truly monumental fantasy series. More

Gorky Park

Gorky Park
First book in the Arkady Renko series, which became an instant bestseller and changed the crime fiction genre. More

Bleak House

Bleak House
Dickens’s tenth novel, often considered his finest; significantly influenced the development of mystery novels. More

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie.
The house of Collins acquired “Queen of Crime” Agatha Christie after she disagreed with her former publisher over the spelling of “coco”/”cocoa” in her first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. More