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
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The Pulitzer Prize–winning novel of fate, tragedy, and the meaning of the human condition. More
Coming of Age in Samoa
A classic that brought science and literature together for both scholars and the general public. More
1941: Avon Books is established…
Avon Books is established by New York businessman Joseph Meyers in association with Edna B. Williams. Now renowned for widely popularizing the historical romance category, the publisher originally begins with a focus on paperback reprints. More
Publishing Firsts: The VendAvon
Chips, cookies, sodas–and books–from a vending machine. Avon’s entertaining comic books—western, horror, romance, war, science fiction, and gangster titles, mostly—appealed to readers of all ages from 1945 through the mid-1950s. More
1952: Caedmon Audio is founded…
Caedmon Audio, the first company to sell audio versions of works by writers such as Dylan Thomas, e. e. cummings, and Robert Frost, is founded. More
Summer of ’49
Halberstam’s classic chronicle of baseball’s most magnificent season. More
The Publisher of presidents
HarperCollins is the publisher of many United States presidents–beginning with the very first one. More
Kimberly McCreight
I write because I want answers. More
Flow
The psychology classic that explored creativity and happiness. More
1871: Harper’s Weekly serializes Middlemarch by Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot)
Harper’s Weekly serializes Middlemarch by Mary Ann Evans, who worked under the male pseudonym George Eliot. More
1923: Harper & Brothers moves to 49 East 33rd Street in New York City…
Harper & Brothers sells the buildings and grounds at Franklin Square and moves its publishing enterprise to 49 East 33rd Street in New York City. More
Bernard Cornwell
The most magical phrase I knew as a child was “Once upon a time” because those four words meant a story was coming. More
Science Fiction & Fantasy
HarperCollins’s connections to nascent science fiction and fantasy worlds began with works such as Edward Lytton Bulwer’s The Coming Race (1871), and H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds (1898) and The Invisible Man (1898). More
2013: HarperCollins partners with digital book subscription services…
HarperCollins is the first major publisher to partner with digital book subscription services. More
Education and Publishing
Beginning in 1830, the Harper brothers believed that the increasingly literate populace might clamor for turnkey collections. More
Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors
A multimillion-copy benchmark of adventure/survival nonfiction. More
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
An American classic called “one of the books of the century” by the New York Public Library. More
1833: J. & J. Harper is renamed Harper & Brothers
J. & J. Harper is renamed Harper & Brothers to reflect the addition of brothers Fletcher and Joseph Wesley Harper to the firm. More
The Gulag Archipelago
Named “the best nonfiction book of the 20th century” by Time magazine. More
Publishing Firsts: Producing Books Electronically
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
Dorothea Benton Frank
You’ve asked me to tell you why I write but I think the answer might be longer than the fifty or one hundred words you’ve allotted me. More
Social Change: Sex in the 20th Century
In between the two world wars, Harper authors tackled the then taboo subject of sex. More
The Bell Jar
A haunting classic that chronicles the breakdown of a brilliant, talented, successful young woman. More
Early Offices
Thomas Nelson’s bookshop once sat in a half-timbered storefront at 7 West Bow in Edinburgh, one of many rickety buildings rising precariously from the Z-shaped street like upside-down pyramids. 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
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