Tag: Social change

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

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: Collins Gives Back

In the UK, William Collins II of Collins and Sons took up labor causes, especially child labor. More

1949: Harper & Brothers publishes the Pulitzer-Prize winning Annie Allen by Gwendolyn Brooks…

Harper & Brothers publishes Annie Allen by Gwendolyn Brooks, which wins the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and makes Brooks the first African American writer to receive the award. More

Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World

Seminal work that launched Gorbachev’s reform movement. 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

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

1958: Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. selects Harper & Brothers to publish his memoir…

After leading the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and becoming the voice of the civil rights movement, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. selects Harper & Brothers to publish Stride Toward Freedom, his memoir about the Montgomery bus boycott. More

Periodicals: Harper’s Weekly, Harper’s New Monthly and Harper’s Bazaar

The Harper brothers consistently sought ways to reach more readers with less expensive publications, and in 1850 they revolutionized the concept of the modern literary magazine with Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. 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

Native Son

Wright’s unsparing reflection on what it means to be black in America. 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

Education and Publishing

Beginning in 1830, the Harper brothers believed that the increasingly literate populace might clamor for turnkey collections. 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

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

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

Sympathy telegram to Coretta Scott King following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The day after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (April 5, 1968), Harper honorary director Cass Canfield sent this telegram... 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 from John Donovan submitting the manuscript for I’ll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip.

In June 1968, author John Donovan wrote to Ursula Nordstrom, head of the U.S. Harper Children’s division, asking her to read the manuscript... More

2000: Gao Xingjian becomes the first Chinese author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature…

Gao Xingjian becomes the first Chinese author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature after HarperCollins Australia publishes his novel Soul Mountain. More

Telegram regarding the publication of One Hundred Years of Solitude

In this Western Union telegram dated September 14, 1967, from Cass Canfield Jr. (an editor at Harper) to Carmen Balcells (the agent of Gabriel García Márquez)... 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

Black Boy

A powerful and eloquent autobiography that has sold more than a million copies since publication. 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

Rita Williams-Garcia

My childhood reading helped to build me from the inside. More

Rita Williams-Garcia

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