On December 10, the Harper & Brothers New York City office suffers a destructive fire, leaving the establishment in ruins. Almost immediately, the company decides to rebuild. More
In 1952, Barbara Cohen and Marianne Roney, a pair of recent college graduates, wrote a letter to Welsh poet Dylan Thomas that contained an unusual business proposal. More
This letter from Agatha Christie (here signing with her second married name, Mallowan) shows the close relationship she had with Collins publisher Billy Collins. More
Though a shared love of the written word inspired those who laid the foundation of HarperCollins, spreading Christian principles was a calling for them. More
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
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
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
The first writer that I really fell in love with was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in particular his Sherlock Holmes stories, and the first story that I ever wrote was a Sherlock Holmes story. More
One summer day in 1884, Horatio Harper, grandson of founder John Harper, began talking with a bright young boy during his regular steamboat commute from Long Island to Manhattan. More
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
In this letter to Collins publisher Billy Collins, dated November 1954, C. S. Lewis—author of The Chronicles of Narnia series, Mere Christianity, and The Screwtape Letters, among others—outlines what he sees as his three types of “literary output”: “A. Religious and General. B. Fiction. C. Academic.” More