Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News C ...

based in New York City.

History

Fletcher, James, John, and Joseph Harper (ca

J. & J. Harper (1817–1833)

James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishing business J. & J. Harper in New York City in 1817. Their two brothers, Joseph Wesley and Fletcher, joined them in the mid-1820s.

Harper & Brothers (1833–1962)

The company changed its name to "Harper & Brothers" in 1833. The headquarters of the publishing house were located at 331 Pearl Street, facing Franklin Square in Lower Manhattan (about where the Manhattan approach to the Brooklyn Bridge lies today). Harper & Brothers began publishing '' Harper's New Monthly Magazine'' in New York City in 1850. The brothers also published '' Harper's Weekly'' (starting in New York City in June 1857), '' Harper's Bazar'' (starting in New York City in November 2, 1867), and ''

Harper's Young People ''Harper's Young People'' was an American children's magazine between 1879 and 1899. The first issue appeared in the fall of 1879. It was published by Harper & Brothers. It was Harper's fourth magazine to be established, after ''Harper's Magazine' ...

'' (starting in New York City in 1879). George B. M. Harvey became president of Harper's on Nov. 16, 1899. ''Harper's New Monthly Magazine'' ultimately became '' Harper's Magazine'', which is now published by the Harper's Magazine Foundation. ''Harper's Weekly'' was absorbed by ''The Independent'' (New York; later Boston) in 1916, which in turn merged with ''The Outlook'' in 1928. ''Harper's Bazar'' was sold to

William Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboya ...

in 1913, became ''Harper's Bazaar'', and is now simply ''Bazaar'', published by the Hearst Corporation. In 1924, Cass Canfield joined Harper & Brothers and held a variety of executive positions until his death in 1986. In 1925, Eugene F. Saxton joined the company as an editor, and he was responsible for publishing many well-known authors, including Edna St. Vincent Millay and Thornton Wilder. In 1935, Edward Aswell moved to Harper & Brothers as an assistant editor of general books and eventually became editor-in-chief. Aswell persuaded

Thomas Wolfe Thomas Clayton Wolfe (October 3, 1900 – September 15, 1938) was an American novelist of the early 20th century. Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels as well as many short stories, dramatic works, and novellas. He is known for mixing highly origi ...

to leave

Scribner's Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner's or Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing American authors including Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Marjorie Kinnan Ra ...

, and, after Wolfe's death, edited the posthumous novels ''The Web and the Rock'', ''You Can't Go Home Again'', and ''The Hills Beyond''.

Harper & Row (1962–1990)

In 1962 Harper & Brothers merged with Row, Peterson & Company to become Harper & Row. Harper's religion publishing moved to San Francisco and became Harper San Francisco (now HarperOne) in 1977. Harper & Row acquired Thomas Y. Crowell Co. and J. B. Lippincott & Co. in the 1970s; Crowell and the trade operations of Lippincott were merged into Harper & Row in 1980. In 1988, Harper & Row purchased the religious publisher Zondervan, including subsidiary Marshall Pickering.

HarperCollins (1990–present)

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (now News Corp) acquired Harper & Row in 1987, and William Collins, Sons in 1990. The names of these two national publishing houses (Harper & Row in the United States and Collins in the United Kingdom) were combined (along with the Harper's torch icon and Collins' fountain icon) to create

. The company has since expanded its international reach with further acquisitions of formerly independent publishers. The Harper imprint began being used in place of HarperCollins in 2007.

Paperbacks

After the purchase of Harper & Row by News Corporation, HarperCollins launched a new mass market paperback line to complement its existing trade paperback

Perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also widel ...

imprint. It was known as Harper Paperbacks from 1990 to 2000, HarperTorch from 2000 to 2006, and Harper from 2007 to the present.

Authors and illustrators (selected)

Robert C. Binkley Robert Cedric Binkley (1897–1940) was an American historian. As chair of the Joint Committee on Materials for Research of the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies in the 1930s he led several projects ...

* Jiddu Krishnamurti * Margaret Wise Brown * Gwendolyn Brooks * Agatha Christie * Paulo Coelho * Arthur Conan Doyle * A.B. Frost * Stephen Fry * Anna Godbersen * John Gray * Zane Grey * John Gunther * Thomas Hardy * Syd Hoff *

Arthur Holmes Arthur Holmes (14 January 1890 – 20 September 1965) was an English geologist who made two major contributions to the understanding of geology. He pioneered the use of radiometric dating of minerals, and was the first earth scientist to grasp ...

* Erin Hunter * Aldous Huxley * Henry James * Crockett Johnson * Bruce Judson * Harper Lee * Martin Luther King Jr. * Barbara Kingsolver * Ruth Krauss *

Ursula K. Le Guin Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the '' Earthsea'' fantasy series. She was ...

* Armistead Maupin *

André Maurois André Maurois (; born Émile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog; 26 July 1885 – 9 October 1967) was a French author. Biography Maurois was born on 26 July 1885 in Elbeuf and educated at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen, both in Normandy. A member of ...

Herman Melville Herman Melville ( born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are '' Moby-Dick'' (1851); '' Typee'' (1846), a ...

Caroline Pafford Miller Caroline Pafford Miller (August 26, 1903 – July 12, 1992) was an American novelist. She gathered the folktales, stories, and archaic dialects of the rural communities she visited in her home state of Georgia in the late 1920s and early 1930s, ...

* Peter G. Miller * Dick Morris * Sarah Palin * Lincoln Peirce * Howard Pyle *

Leland M. Roth Leland M. Roth is a leading American architectural historian who is the Marion Dean Ross Distinguished Professor of Architectural History emeritus in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture in the University of Oregon College of Des ...

* Laura Schlessinger * Maurice Sendak * Sara Shepard * Shel Silverstein * Betty Smith *

Lemony Snicket Lemony Snicket is the pen name of American author Daniel Handler (born February 28, 1970). Handler has published several children's books under the name, most notably ''A Series of Unfortunate Events'', which has sold over 60 million copies and s ...

* Howard Spring *

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Pierre Teilhard de Chardin ( (); 1 May 1881 – 10 April 1955) was a French Jesuit priest, scientist, paleontologist, theologian, philosopher and teacher. He was Darwinian in outlook and the author of several influential theological and philo ...

* Mark Twain * Charles Dudley Warner * E. B. White * Simon Winchester *

Laura Ingalls Wilder Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder (February 7, 1867 – February 10, 1957) was an American writer, mostly known for the '' Little House on the Prairie'' series of children's books, published between 1932 and 1943, which were based on her childhood ...

* Thornton Wilder *

Richard Wright Richard Wright may refer to: Arts * Richard Wright (author) (1908–1960), African-American novelist * Richard B. Wright (1937–2017), Canadian novelist * Richard Wright (painter) (1735–1775), marine painter * Richard Wright (artist) (born 19 ...

References

External links

Official website (US)Official website (UK)
*Finding aid t
Harper & Brothers records
an
Harper & Row Publishers records
at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library. {{Authority control Publishing companies established in 1817 Book publishing companies based in New York (state) Publishing companies disestablished in 1962 HarperCollins books