Publishing Firsts: The Rotary Press
American inventor Richard Hoe’s 1847 four-cylinder rotary press helped increase printing output tenfold, to 8,000 pages per hour. More
Herman Melville and Moby-Dick
Harper & Brothers turned down Herman Melville’s first book, Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life, and it was released to strong sales by another publisher. More
Publishing Firsts: Stereotyping
The Harper brothers first began publishing in the early 1800s, when emerging technologies were fundamentally changing the process of printing–replacing the painstaking compositing, inking, and pulling processes needed for each page. More
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
Incidents of Travel in Yucatán
In 1839, American diplomat John Lloyd Stephens and British artist Frederick Catherwood—both already celebrated for their adventures in Egypt, the Holy Land, Greece, and Rome—sailed together out of New York harbor on an expedition into the forbidding rain forests of present-day Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico. More
King James Version Bible (KJV)
Since granted the license to print the Bible in 1839, Collins has sold tens of millions of copies. More
Crime & Mystery At HarperCollins
In 1860, Harper & Brothers had paid Wilkie Collins £750 for The Woman in White, which heralded the publisher’s entry into the crime and mystery genre. More
Mark Twain
In 1866, with mostly newspaper articles and other short works to his name, Mark Twain accepted an assignment from the Sacramento Union to produce a weekly column from Hawaii. More
The Harper Fire of 1853
The Harper offices in New York City were claimed by fire in 1853, when a plumber lit a lamp with a roll of paper and then attempted to extinguish the burning roll in a tub of water. More
1850: Harper’s New Monthly Magazine launches
Harper’s New Monthly Magazine launches in June, serializing Charles Dickens’s Bleak House, as well as then unknown authors Herman Melville and Mark Twain. More
The Woman in White
One of the earliest works of detective fiction, this story caused a sensation with readers at the time. More
Social Change: Women Writers
In the mid-late 1800s, Harper & Brothers reprinted several milestone titles in the history of British feminist literature as well as the global canon, such as Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847), Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), and Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), as well as George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1872). More
Social Change: Thomas Nast, Illustrator
Illustrator Thomas Nast first made his name documenting the Civil War in all its gruesome reality, but he is best known for developing the political cartoon form and our modern depictions of Santa Claus. More
Collins Reference and Education
William Collins spent his earliest years teaching before starting his publishing venture in 1819. More
James Harper, Mayor Of New York City
With corruption rampant in New York City politics, the newly formed American Republican Party convinced James Harper, one of the brothers who had founded J. & J. Harper in 1817, to run for mayor. More
Building Literary Identities: Canada, Australia, India
In the mid-1800s, William Collins took his UK publishing business international–from the Americas, through Australia, to Africa. More
Bleak House
Dickens’s tenth novel, often considered his finest; significantly influenced the development of mystery novels. More
1863: Harper & Brothers takes a clear stand in favor of abolition
Harper & Brothers takes a clear stand in favor of abolition with the publication of Fanny Kemble’s Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838–1839. More
Social Change: The Harper Brothers and The American Civil War
Literacy became both a predictor of and influence on the American Civil War, being one of the disparities between North and South. 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
Education and Publishing
Beginning in 1830, the Harper brothers believed that the increasingly literate populace might clamor for turnkey collections. More
1853: William Collins introduces new steam presses
William Collins introduces new steam presses, allowing Collins and Sons to publish Shakespeare and The Pilgrim’s Progress in affordable editions available to the masses. More
1860: Harper & Brothers enters into the crime fiction genre
Harper & Brothers pay Wilkie Collins £750 for The Woman in White, which heralds the firm's entry into the crime fiction genre. More
1850: Thomas Nelson Jr. perfects one of the greatest advances in printing since Gutenberg
Thomas Nelson Jr. perfects the rotary press, one of the greatest technological advances in printing since Johannes Gutenberg’s development of movable type in the fifteenth century. More
A Christmas Carol
Dickens’s beloved classic of the meaning of Christmas that has inspired countless adaptations. More
George Eliot
Mary Anne Evans, born in 1819, led a turbulent life that often broke with Victorian social norms. More
The HarperCollins Logo
The HarperCollins logo represents the 1990 consolidation of Harper & Row, based in New York, and Collins Publishers, based in London and Glasgow. More