Eugene Exman and Martin Luther King
Shortly after the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 and ‘56, Harper & Brothers religious books editor Eugene Exman left New York City for Alabama and secured a meeting with Martin Luther King Jr. More
Social Change: Collins Gives Back
In the UK, William Collins II of Collins and Sons took up labor causes, especially child labor. More
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
A child’s perspective as a refugee during the rise of Nazism; now a modern classic. More
Brenda Jackson
Of all the books I’ve read, it was a romance story that influenced me the most. More
Profiles in Courage
Pulitzer Prize winner that helped propel the young senator to the White House. More
Tales of the City
First book in Maupin’s acclaimed and groundbreaking series documenting San Francisco’s underground and gay culture. More
Journey to Jo’burg
Groundbreaking book set in South Africa during the apartheid era and banned by its government. 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
Education and Publishing
Beginning in 1830, the Harper brothers believed that the increasingly literate populace might clamor for turnkey collections. More
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez drew on his childhood experiences in Colombia when crafting the story of the fictional Buendía family in the classic One Hundred Years of Solitude. More
Sounder
Newbery Award–winning book that became an influential children’s work on race and class. More
Monster
Winner of the first Michael L. Printz Award and the Coretta Scott King Award. More
Black Boy
A powerful and eloquent autobiography that has sold more than a million copies since publication. 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
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
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
Half of a Yellow Sun
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s masterpiece, and winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction. More
1972: Avon launches the historical romance genre…
Avon launches the historical romance genre when it publishes Kathleen Woodiwiss’s The Flame and the Flower, a historical romance with a strong female lead and sexual situations that go a step beyond the tame romances of earlier eras. More
Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
While giving a talk to a group of men and women about relationships, author John Gray realized he had a hook for a new book. More
Stride Toward Freedom
Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s memoir of the Montgomery bus boycott. More
The Downing Street Years
Compelling account of Thatcher’s remarkable life in her own words. More
Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World
Seminal work that launched Gorbachev’s reform movement. More
Their Eyes Were Watching God
One of the most widely read and acclaimed novels in the canon of African-American literature. More
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
An American classic called “one of the books of the century” by the New York Public Library. 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
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
1960: The Pulitzer Prize–winning To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is published…
J. B. Lippincott publishes the Pulitzer Prize–winning To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, one of the most influential books on race in America, which goes on to sell more than 40 million copies. More