Veen Bosch & Keuning (VBK) is a Dutch publishing group of fiction and nonfiction books that is active also in Belgium. It operates through multiple units. Its headquarters are located in Utrecht. The company is a subsidiary of

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster LLC (, ) is an American publishing house owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts since 2023. It was founded in New York City in 1924, by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. Along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group US ...

History

Bosch & Keuning was founded in 1925 when the name of Christian publisher E.J. Bosch J.Bzn was coupled with that of his companion Pieter Keuning. In 1997 the graphical activities were split from Bosch & Keuning, after which the company expanded as a publisher. In 1999 Veen Uitgevers Groep spun off from publishing group

Wolters Kluwer Wolters Kluwer N.V. is a Dutch information services company. The company serves legal, business, tax, accounting, finance, audit, risk, compliance, and healthcare markets. Wolters Kluwer in its current form was founded in 1987 with a merger bet ...

. Veen referred to L.J. Veen, founder of one of the units, founded in 1887. In the Spring of 2001 Veen and Bosch & Keuning merged into Veen Bosch & Keuning. The Noordelijke Dagblad Combinatie merged in March 2005 with Veen Bosch & Keuning to form NDC, VBK. ThiemeMeulenhoff was also part of the media conglomerate. On 1 June 2007, the NDC Mediagroep was established as the subsidiary of NDC, VDK that would handle interests in periodicals, radio and TV. The group's interest in radio and TV was temporary. In late 2012 the VBK and ThiemeMeulenhoff book publication activities were spun off. As a result, the NDC, VBK became obsolete and VBK, ThiemeMeulenhoff,

NDC Mediagroep NDC Mediagroep, previously known as FGDP and later as Mediahuis Noord, was a Dutch publisher of newspapers, magazines, and websites focused on the three northern provinces of the Netherlands: Drenthe, Friesland and Groningen. It was owned by FB O ...

became independent companies again. In December 2017 Veen Bosch & Keuning acquired Bruna.Volkskran
VBK Beheer neemt per direct noodlijdend Bruna over van PostNL en ING, 6 december 2017
/ref> In 2019, it sold Bruna to the

Audax Groep Audax Groep is a Dutch print media and retail company, active also in Belgium. The publishing arm publishes magazines. It also produces and prints books, calendars, and flyers for other companies and builds websites. The Audax headquarters are loc ...

, who already owned AKO, Bruna's main competitor. In May 2024, Simon & Schuster acquired Veen Bosch & Keuning. The acquisition includes all of VBK's imprints in the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as its sister companies, the audiobook producer Thinium, and Bookchoice, a subscription-based platform for e-books and audiobooks. This is the first expansion of Simon & Schuster into a non-English market.

Subsidiaries

Van Dale Lexicografie

Van Dale Lexicografie publishes the

Van Dale ''Van Dale Great Dictionary of the Dutch Language'' (, ), called ' (, ) for short, is the leading dictionary of the Dutch language. The latest edition was published in April 2022. History Van Dale's dictionary was first published after the dea ...

dictionary, the authoritative Dutch-language dictionary. It also publishes bilingual dictionaries for other languages, translated from and to Dutch, and offers language courses and translation services.

Luitingh-Sijthoff

Luitingh-Sijthoff releases

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying character (arts), individuals, events, or setting (narrative), places that are imagination, imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent ...

and

nonfiction Non-fiction (or nonfiction) is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to convey information only about the real world, rather than being grounded in imagination. Non-fiction typically aims to present topics objectively ...

books for the

Dutch language Dutch ( ) is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language and is the List of languages by total number of speak ...

market. The A.W. Sijthoff company was founded by

Albertus Willem Sijthoff Albertus Willem Sijthoff (30 June 1829 – 29 July 1913) was a prominent Dutch people, Dutch publisher from Leiden, Netherlands. Early life Sijthoff was born in 1829 to an established family in Leiden. He was educated at the Stedelijk Gymnasium L ...

Leiden Leiden ( ; ; in English language, English and Archaism, archaic Dutch language, Dutch also Leyden) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Nethe ...

in 1851 and Luitingh was established in 1947. Sijthoff, who rose to prominence in the trade of translated books, was opposed to a petition for the Netherlands to become a signatory to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works in 1899 because he felt that the international copyright restrictions would stifle the country's publishing industry. The Sijthoff office was attacked by

car bomb A car bomb, bus bomb, van bomb, lorry bomb, or truck bomb, also known as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED), is an improvised explosive device designed to be detonated in an automobile or other vehicles. Car bombs can be roug ...

after the ''

Haagsche Courant 250px, The former headquarters of the Haagsche Courant in Rijswijk The ''Haagsche Courant'' operated as an independent newspaper between 1864 and 2005 in The Hague and its suburbs. After it was acquired by the Algemeen Dagblad (AD) it is now p ...

'', owned at the time by the Sijthoff family, printed a negative article about business activities in the 1980s by a

collection agency Debt collection or cash collection is the process of pursuing payments of money or other agreed-upon value owed to a creditor. The debtors may be individuals or businesses. An organization that specializes in debt collection is known as a coll ...

owned by Dutch criminal Eef Hoos. In 1989, the A.W. Sijthoff and Luitingh publishing companies merged to form Luitingh-Sijthoff, which is headquartered in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

. The books in Luitingh-Sijthoff's catalogue are published under a number of specialized

imprint Imprint or imprinting may refer to: Entertainment * ''Imprint'' (TV series), Canadian television series * "Imprint" (''Masters of Horror''), episode of TV show ''Masters of Horror'' * ''Imprint'' (film), a 2007 independent drama/thriller film ...

s, including Luitingh, Luitingh Fantasy, Mouria, Poema-Pocket, Sijthoff, and Uitgeverij L. Luitingh publishes Dutch versions of popular

English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

novels by writers that include

Dan Brown Daniel Gerhard Brown (born June 22, 1964) is an American author best known for his Thriller (genre), thriller novels, including the Robert Langdon (book series), Robert Langdon novels ''Angels & Demons'' (2000), ''The Da Vinci Code'' (2003), '' ...

Michael Crichton John Michael Crichton (; October 23, 1942 – November 4, 2008) was an American author, screenwriter and filmmaker. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and over a dozen have been adapted into films. His literary works heavil ...

Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author. Dubbed the "King of Horror", he is widely known for his horror novels and has also explored other genres, among them Thriller (genre), suspense, crime fiction, crime, scienc ...

Dean Koontz Dean Ray Koontz (born July 9, 1945) is an American author. His novels are billed as thriller (genre), suspense thrillers, but frequently incorporate elements of horror fiction, horror, fantasy, science fiction, Mystery fiction, mystery, and sati ...

Robert Ludlum Robert Ludlum (May 25, 1927 – March 12, 2001) was an American author of 27 Thriller (genre), thriller novels, best known as the creator of Jason Bourne from the original ''Bourne (novel series), The Bourne Trilogy'' series. The number of copi ...

and

Thomas Harris William Thomas Harris III (born September 22, 1940) is an American writer. He is the author of a series of suspense novels about Hannibal Lecter. The majority of his works have been adapted into films and television, including '' The Silence o ...

. Since its establishment in 1992, the Luitingh Fantasy imprint publishes authors

Raymond E. Feist Raymond Elias Feist (; born Raymond Elias Gonzales III; December 21, 1945) is an American fantasy fiction author who wrote '' The Riftwar Cycle'', a series of novels and short stories. His books have been translated into multiple languages and ...

Terry Goodkind Terry Lee Goodkind (January 11, 1948September 17, 2020) was an American writer. He was known for the epic fantasy series ''The Sword of Truth'' as well as the contemporary suspense novel ''The Law of Nines'' (2009), which has ties to his fantasy ...

Bernhard Hennen Bernhard Hennen (born 1966 in Krefeld) is a German writer of fantasy literature. He is best known internationally for his series ''Die Elfen'' ("The Elves", since 2004), which has been translated into a number of European languages. Career H ...

Robin Hobb Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden (; born March 5, 1952), known by her pen names Robin Hobb and Megan Lindholm, is an American writer of speculative fiction. As Hobb, she is best known for her fantasy novels set in the ''Realm of the Elderlings'', ...

Robert Jordan James Oliver Rigney Jr. (October 17, 1948 – September 16, 2007), better known by his pen name Robert Jordan," Robert Jordan" was the name of the protagonist in the 1940 Hemingway novel ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'', though this is not how the n ...

and

George R.R. Martin George Raymond Richard Martin (born George Raymond Martin; September 20, 1948) also known by the initials G.R.R.M. is an American author, television writer, and television producer. He is best known as the author of the unfinished series of ep ...

. Poema-Pocket is a publisher of

mass market paperback A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, also known as wrappers, and often held together with glue rather than stitches or staples. In contrast, hardback (hardcover) books are bound with cardboar ...

s by popular fiction authors

Patricia Cornwell Patricia Cornwell (born Patricia Carroll Daniels; June 9, 1956) is an American crime writer. She is known for her best-selling novels featuring medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, of which the first was inspired by a series of sensational murders ...

Jill Mansell Jill Mansell (born 15 June 1957) is a British author of romantic comedy. Her books have sold over fifteen million copies worldwide. Background and personal life Mansell grew up in the Cotswolds and attended Sir William Romney's School in Tetb ...

and

Danielle Steel Danielle Fernandes Dominique Schuelein-Steel (born August 14, 1947) is an American writer, best known for her romance novels. She is the bestselling living author and one of the best-selling fiction authors of all time, with over 800 milli ...

. Sijthoff publishes thrillers and nonfiction books for casual readers, including '' De zaak Natalee Holloway'' (''The Case of Natalee Holloway'') by

Joran van der Sloot Joran Andreas Petrus van der Sloot (; born 6 August 1987) is a Dutch murderer who was convicted in the 2010 killing of Stephany Flores Ramírez in Lima, Peru. He first came to public attention as the prime suspect in the disappearance of Natal ...

. Since 2005, Uitgeverij L (Publishing House L) publishes

cartoon A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently Animation, animated, in an realism (arts), unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or s ...

collections and

graphic novel A graphic novel is a self-contained, book-length form of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and Anthology, anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comics sc ...

s and by

comic book A comic book, comic-magazine, or simply comic is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and wri ...

authors such as

Christophe Arleston Christophe Arleston (born Christophe Pelinq, 14 August 1963) is a French comics writer and editor. He has also worked as Scotch Arleston. Biography In his early childhood, Christophe Arleston lived in Madagascar, Macon and Paris before returnin ...

and

Martin Lodewijk Martinus Spyridon Johannes Lodewijk (born 30 April 1939) is a Dutch comics writer and cartoonist, and advertising illustrator. Martin Lodewijk was born in Rotterdam. He dropped out of high school in 1957, and started drawing cartoons, notably of ...

as well as

manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

artists such as

Osamu Tezuka Osamu Tezuka (, born , ''Tezuka Osamu'', – 9 February 1989) was a Japanese manga artist, cartoonist and animator. Considered to be among the greatest and most influential cartoonists of all time, his prolific output, pioneering techniques an ...

References

External links

Veen Bosch & Keuning
(Official site) Simon & Schuster Book publishing companies of the Netherlands Dutch companies established in 1925 Mass media in Utrecht (city) Publishing companies established in 2001 {{DEFAULTSORT:Veen Bosch and Keuning