W. W. Norton & Company

W. W. Norton & Company
Status Active
Founded 1923
Founder William Warder Norton
Country of origin United States
Headquarters location 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York
Key people W. Drake McFeely President
Publication types Books
Imprints Countryman, Liveright
Number of employees 450
Official website www.wwnorton.com
500 Fifth Avenue

W. W. Norton & Company is an American publishing company based in New York City. It has been owned wholly by its employees since the early 1960s. The company is known for its "Norton Anthologies" (particularly the Norton Anthology of English Literature) and its texts in the "Norton Critical Editions" series, the latter of which are frequently assigned in university literature courses.

History

The roots of the company date back to 1923, when William Warder Norton founded the firm and became its first president.[1] Storer D. Lunt took over in 1945 after Norton's death, and was succeeded by George Brockway (1957–1976), Donald S. Lamm (1976–1994), and now W. Drake McFeely (1994–present).[2] Since the 1950s Norton's college textbook line has expanded to include leading titles in economics, government, history, music, psychology, political science, sociology, and many other academic subjects. Several of its college textbooks, including The Norton Shakespeare, The Enjoyment of Music, A History of Western Music, and new and revised entries in the Norton Anthology and Norton Critical Edition series, have become bestsellers in the academic fields. The Norton Professional Books division was founded in 1985 with a line of psychotherapy volumes, expanding to include neuroscience, education, architecture, and design books.

Norton acquired Liveright (the successor to the famous Boni & Liveright publishing house) in 1974 and Countryman Press (New England travel book publisher) in 1996.

Publishing

W. W. Norton & Company is an employee-owned publisher in the United States,[3] which publishes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, college textbooks, cookbooks, art books, and professional books.[4]

Norton's best-selling trade books include: the works of National Book Award-winning fiction author Andrea Barrett; Helter Skelter (1974) by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry; The Ugly American (1958) by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer; A Clockwork Orange (1962) by Anthony Burgess; The Book of Genesis (2009) by Robert Crumb; Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997), Jared Diamond’s Pulitzer Prize-winning best-seller; works by Pulitzer prize-winning historians Annette Gordon-Reed and Edmund S. Morgan; The End of Faith (2004) by Sam Harris; The Red Book (2009) by Carl Jung; The Perfect Storm (1997) by Sebastian Junger; Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris (1998) and Hitler 1936–1945: Nemesis (2000) by Ian Kershaw; Liar's Poker (1989), Moneyball (2003), The Blind Side (2006), The Big Short (2010), and Flash Boys (2014) by Michael Lewis; Patrick O'Brian’s critically acclaimed Aubrey-Maturin series; The Death of Vishnu (2001) by Manil Suri; Khrushchev: The Man and His Era (2003) by William Taubman; The Future of Freedom (2003) by Fareed Zakaria; and others in several subject fields.

Norton currently distributes books for several independent publishers, such as the travel and culture guide books published by Blue Guides and Countryman Press, which Norton acquired in 1996. Other partners include Foreign Affairs Books, poetry and other literature from New Directions Publishing, and sports, nonfiction and other titles from Skyhorse Publishing, among others.

References

  1. ↑ "Norton History". W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Retrieved 20 March 2013.
  2. ↑ "Gale Directory of Company Histories: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.". Retrieved 20 March 2013.
  3. ↑ "Norton History". W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Retrieved 20 March 2013.
  4. ↑ "Stock Page for W. W. Norton & Company". BusinessWeek.com.

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