HarperCollins
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.It is the combination of the publishers William Collins Sons and Co Ltd.,a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company. The worldwide CEO of HarperCollins is Jane Friedman. The company publishes under many different imprints.
History
Collins was a Scottish printing company founded by a Presbyterian schoolmaster, William Collins publisher in Glasgow in 1819, in partnership with Charles Chalmers, the younger brother of Thomas Chalmers, minister of Tron Church, Glasgow. The company had to overcome many early obstacles, and Charles Chalmers left the business in 1825. The company eventually found success in 1841 as a printer of Bible, and in 1848 Collins's son Sir William Collins (Lord Provost) developed the firm as a publishing venture, specialising in religious and educational books. The company was renamed William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd. in 1868. [1]
Although the early emphasis of the company had been on religion and education, Collins also published more widely. In 1917, with Sir Godfrey Collins in charge, the firm started publishing fiction. William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd. published all but the first six of Agatha Christie's novels. Upon purchasing the rights to the works of C. S. Lewis, Fount was established as Collins's religion imprint.
HarperCollins Children's Books has a long tradition in the industry, and has one of the best backlists in the business. This is largely due to legendary children's books editor Ursula Nordstorm who was the director of Harper's Department of Books for Boys and Girls from 1940 to 1973. She personally brought out such classics of children's literature as Goodnight Moon, Where the Wild Things Are, The Giving Tree, Charlotte's Web, Beverly Cleary's series starring Ramona Quimby, Harold and the Purple Crayon and scores more. [2] In 1998, Nordtrom's personal correspondence was brought out in Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom (illustrated by Maurice Sendak). The writer Charlotte Zolotow, who began her career as a stenographer to Nordstrom, became her protege, and went on to write more than 80 books of her own including those of as well as to edit hundreds of others, including Nordstrom's own book.The Secret Language, and those of Paul Fleischman. Zolotow was later made the children's book department head, then went on to become the company's first female vice president. Finally, she had her own imprint, CZ Books.
Today, the HarperCollins children's division publishes best-sellers from Lemony Snicket, Neil Gaiman and Jamie Lee Curtis.
In 1989 Collins was bought by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Joined together with the New York-based publisher Harper & Row in 1987, they now trade under the name Harper Collins.
In 2003, Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins, published Edith Grossman's new translation of Cervantes' Don Quixote to great acclaim.
Collins is still used as an imprint, chiefly for wildlife and natural history books including the on-going New Naturalist series and field guide, as well as English and bilingual dictionaries based on the Bank of English large text of contemporary English texts.
In 1999, News Corporation purchased the Hearst Book Group consisting of William Morrow & Company and Avon Books. [1]
Its web site home page describes it as "Home of William Morrow, Avon, Perennial, Rayo, Amistad, Caedmon Audio, Regan Books".
In 2007, the company published a new series of books entitled Stranger Than..., which include though-provoking works of non-fiction.
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[edit] Imprints
HarperCollins has over 30 book imprints, most of which are based in the United States. [2]
- Amistad
- Avon
- Avon Red
- Avon A
- Caedmon
- Collins
- Collins Design
- Ecco
- Eos
- Greenwillow Books
- HarperCollins Children's Audio
- HarperCollins Children's Books
- HarperFestival
- Harper Paperbacks
- Harper Perennial
- Harper Perennial Modern Classics
- HarperPress
- HarperAudio
- HarperCollins
- HarperCollins e-Books
- HarperEntertainment
- HarperLuxe
- HarperSanFrancisco
- HarperTeen
- HarperTorch
- HarperTrophy
- Joanna Cotler Books
- Julie Andrews Collection
- Katherine Tegen Books
- Laura Geringer Books
- Morrow Cookbooks
- Rayo
- William Morrow
- Zondervan
[edit] See also
- COBUILD - a research facility set up by Collins in conjunction with the University of Birmingham.
- John Bartholomew and Son Ltd - Collins Bartholomew, cartographic division of HarperCollins.
- Collins Word Web
[edit] References
- ^ Keir, David (1952). The House of Collins: The Story of a Scottish Family of Publishers from 1789 to the Present Day. Collins: London. ISBN B00005XH0X.
- ^ Marcus, Leonard S (editor) (1998). Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom Harper Trophy New York. ISBN 0-06-446235-8
[edit] External links
- HarperCollins Publishers India
- HarperCollins Publishers US
- HarperCollins Publishers UK
- Collins UK
- HarperCollinsChildrens US
- HarperCollins Publishers AUS
- HarperCollins Publishers CAN
- Zondervan
- How to make a dictionary
- Texting - abbreviation - dictionary.
