Tag: Mid 1900s

Judith Kerr: Beyond The Tiger Who Came to Tea

Judith Kerr.
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

A Bear Called Paddington

An early cover layout for A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond, published by Collins in 1958.
In 1958, an editor at Collins named Barbara Ker Wilson received a manuscript submission about a talking bear, which she opened with “initial suspicion” —as the publisher had received many other proposals featuring humanized animals that “are invariably either whimsy-whamsy, written down, or filled with adult innuendoes.” More

Garth Williams, Illustrator

Marketing flyer promoting the 1946 publication of Little Fur Family, written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Garth Williams.
Garth Williams was a little-known but talented young illustrator when he was commissioned by Ursula Nordstrom, head of Harper’s Department of Books for Boys and Girls, to illustrate the classic Stuart Little by E. B. White. More

The Look of Stuart Little

Stuart Little by E. B. White (1945).
In early 1945, Ursula Nordstrom, head of Harper’s Department of Books for Boys and Girls was awaiting completion of E. B. White’s manuscript for a children’s story about a talking mouse, titled Stuart Little. More

The New International Version of the Bible

The Committee on Bible Translation scholars.
The efforts of one man in the mid-1950s brought about the publication of the New International Version of the Bible, a contemporary English translation that provided an accurate and understandable alternative to the King James Version, which had been the dominant translation for centuries. More

Goodnight Moon

Goodnight Moon
Every child’s must-have bedtime classic; beloved by generations of readers and listeners. More

Fahrenheit 451

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

Charlotte’s Web

Charlotte’s Web
Considered a classic of children’s literature; a novel of friendship, love, life, and death. More

Publishing Firsts: Producing Books Electronically

The Long Short Cut by Andrew Garve (1968).
Although word-processing programs and electronic typewriters had been around since the late 1960s, Harper & Row was the first to help pioneer electronic publishing with Andrew Garve’s The Long Short Cut in 1968, which was, according to the New York Times, “the first book set into type completely by electronic composition.” More

Social Change: Civil Rights

A page from the Fall 1937 Harper & Brothers catalog touting This Is My Story by Eleanor Roosevelt.
Beginning with This Is My Story (1937), Harper & Brothers published many works by Eleanor Roosevelt that promoted civil rights and the need for government action, including This I Remember (1949), On My Own (1958), and Tomorrow Is Now (1963). More

To Kill a Mockingbird

A New York Times advertisement announcing the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, which ran on July 17, 1960.
When J. B. Lippincott (later acquired by HarperCollins) editor Therese (Tay) von Hohoff saw the first draft of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), she saw a promising story, but one in need of some reshaping and editing. More

Original contract for Thorn-Apple Tree

Original contract for Thorn-Apple Tree
Grace Campbell’s debut novel, Thorn-Apple Tree, was one of the earliest works of fiction written by a Canadian to be published by William Collins Sons & Co. Canada Ltd. More

Born Free

Born Free
Its remarkable interaction between the author and a lion cub named Elsa enchanted generations. More

The Odyssey of Homer

The Odyssey of Homer
Hailed as “the best translation there is of a great, perhaps the greatest, poet” (New York Times Book Review). More