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
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943), a story about growing up poor in turn-of-the-century Brooklyn, was originally an entry for a Harper & Brothers memoir contest. More
Education and Publishing
Beginning in 1830, the Harper brothers believed that the increasingly literate populace might clamor for turnkey collections. More
Collins Operations during WWII
Collins maintained combined office and warehouse space at Bridewell Place in London for many years, and in 1917, its new London publishing office at 48 Pall Mall was complemented by printing works in Mayfair that included a state-of-the-art bindery, warehouse, and distribution center. 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
Tales of the City
First book in Maupin’s acclaimed and groundbreaking series documenting San Francisco’s underground and gay culture. 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
Lionel Shriver
Why I write: To find out what I think. More
1862: Thomas Nast documents the Civil War and politics in Harper’s Weekly
Thomas Nast begins documenting the Civil War and politics through caricature in Harper’s Weekly. 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
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
A child’s perspective as a refugee during the rise of Nazism; now a modern classic. 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
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
Sounder
Newbery Award–winning book that became an influential children’s work on race and class. 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
The Book of Negroes
A milestone in Canada’s understanding of black history and one of the bestselling books in Canadian publishing history. More
Garth Williams, Illustrator
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
1937: Zora Neale Hurston’s masterpiece, Their Eyes Were Watching God is published…
J. B. Lippincott publishes Zora Neale Hurston’s masterpiece, Their Eyes Were Watching God. More
1970: Harper & Row publishes the first English translation of One Hundred Years of Solitude…
Harper & Row publishes the first English translation of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, establishing him as a leading young Latin American writer and a dominant and innovative figure on the global literary scene. More
Journey to Jo’burg
Groundbreaking book set in South Africa during the apartheid era and banned by its government. More
Rita Williams-Garcia
My childhood reading helped to build me from the inside. More
Go Set a Watchman
This newly discovered novel from beloved author Harper Lee became the bestselling book of 2015. More
Monster
Winner of the first Michael L. Printz Award and the Coretta Scott King Award. 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
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
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
Black Boy
A powerful and eloquent autobiography that has sold more than a million copies since publication. More