Social Change: Sex in the 20th Century
In between the two world wars, Harper authors tackled the then taboo subject of sex. More
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World
One of Harper & Brothers’ most famous and influential authors was Aldous Huxley, who signed with the publisher in 1927 and published his first book, Texts and Pretexts, with them in 1932. 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
The Gulag Archipelago
Named “the best nonfiction book of the 20th century” by Time magazine. More
1895: Mark Twain signs an exclusive contract with Harper & Brothers
Mark Twain signs an exclusive contract with Harper & Brothers, which serializes Joan of Arc in its periodicals and publishes it as a book one year later. 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
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
A child’s perspective as a refugee during the rise of Nazism; now a modern classic. More
Their Eyes Were Watching God
One of the most widely read and acclaimed novels in the canon of African-American literature. More
A People’s History of the United States
Classic national bestseller that made a significant contribution to a complete and balanced understanding of American history. More
Education and Publishing
Beginning in 1830, the Harper brothers believed that the increasingly literate populace might clamor for turnkey collections. More
1978: Harper & Row publishes Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series…
Harper & Row publishes the first book in Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series after it is serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle. The series highlights gay issues and becomes a cultural icon for generations of readers. More
Lionel Shriver
Why I write: To find out what I think. 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
Native Son
Wright’s unsparing reflection on what it means to be black in America. More
Social Change: Civil Rights
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
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
Profiles in Courage
Harper & Brothers helped groom the image of a future president when it agreed in the mid-1950s to work with a young senator on a collection of biographical sketches about courageous American lawmakers. More
Red Scarf Girl
Searing memoir set during the height of the Cultural Revolution in China. More
1993: Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher publishes The Downing Street Years…
Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher publishes The Downing Street Years, which recounts her eleven and a half years at London’s 10 Downing Street, the official prime minister’s residence, with HarperCollins. More
Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World
Seminal work that launched Gorbachev’s reform movement. 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
Social Change: African American Identity in the U.S.
HarperCollins has published a number of books that explore the racial identity of African Americans during periods of great social conflict. More
Half of a Yellow Sun
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s masterpiece, and winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction. 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
George Eliot
Mary Anne Evans, born in 1819, led a turbulent life that often broke with Victorian social norms. More
1937: Harper & Brothers publishes This Is My Story by Eleanor Roosevelt…
Harper & Brothers publishes This Is My Story by Eleanor Roosevelt. 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