Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner's or Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City that has published several notable American authors, including

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

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, F. Scott Fitzgerald,

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, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings,

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, Robert A. Heinlein, Thomas Wolfe, George Santayana, John Clellon Holmes,

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, and Edith Wharton. The firm published '' Scribner's Magazine'' for many years. More recently, several Scribner titles and authors have garnered Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards and other merits. In 1978, the company merged with Atheneum and became The Scribner Book Companies. It merged into Macmillan in 1984.

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 ...

bought Macmillan in 1994. By this point, only the trade book and reference book operations still bore the original family name. After the merger, the Macmillan and Atheneum adult lists were merged into Scribner's, and the Scribner's children list was merged into Atheneum. The trade division, now simply "Scribner", was retained by Simon & Schuster, while the reference division and the trademarks have been owned by

Gale A gale is a strong wind; the word is typically used as a descriptor in nautical contexts. The U.S. National Weather Service defines a gale as sustained surface wind moving at a speed between .

since 1999 and Simon & Schuster licensed the Scribner trademark for trade publishing from Gale. , Scribner is a division of Simon & Schuster under the title Scribner Publishing Group, including the Touchstone Books imprint. The president of Scribner is Susan Moldow (who also held the position of publisher from 1994 to 2012), and the current publisher is Nan Graham.

History

The firm was founded in 1846 by Charles Scribner I and Isaac D. Baker as "Baker & Scribner." After Baker's death, Scribner bought the remainder of the company and renamed it the "Charles Scribner Company." In 1865, the company first ventured into magazine publishing with ''Hours at Home''. In 1870, the Scribners organized a new firm, Scribner and Company, to publish a magazine entitled '' Scribner's Monthly''. After the death of Charles Scribner I in 1871, his son John Blair Scribner took over as president of the company. His other sons Charles Scribner II and Arthur Hawley Scribner would also join the firm in 1875 and 1884. They each later served as presidents. When the other partners in the venture sold their stake to the family, the company was renamed Charles Scribner's Sons. The company launched '' St. Nicholas Magazine'' in 1873 with Mary Mapes Dodge as editor and Frank R. Stockton as assistant editor; it became well known as a children's magazine. When the Scribner family sold the magazine company to outside investors in 1881, ''Scribner's Monthly'' was renamed the '' Century Magazine.'' The Scribner brothers were enjoined from publishing any magazine for a period. In 1886, at the expiration of this term, they launched '' Scribner's Magazine.'' The firm's headquarters were in the Scribner Building, built in 1893, on lower Fifth Avenue at 21st Street, and later in the Charles Scribner's Sons Building, on Fifth Avenue in midtown. Both buildings were designed by Ernest Flagg in a Beaux Arts style. The children's book division was established in 1934 under the leadership of Alice Dalgliesh. It published works by distinguished authors and illustrators including

N.C. Wyeth Newell Convers Wyeth (October 22, 1882 – October 19, 1945), known as N. C. Wyeth, was an American painter and illustrator. He was a student of Howard Pyle and became one of America's most well-known illustrators. Wyeth created more than 3,000 ...

, Robert A. Heinlein, Marcia Brown, Will James, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and Leo Politi. Scribner merged with Atheneum in 1978 and into Macmillan Inc. in 1984. In 1994, Macmillan was bought by

. The reference division along with Charles Scribner's Sons and Scribner trademarks were sold as part of Simon & Schuster's Macmillan Library Reference (MLR) to Pearson in 1998, Pearson resold MLR to

Thomson Corporation Thomson Corporation was one of the world's largest information companies. It was established in 1989 following a merger between International Thomson Organization and Thomson Newspapers. In 2008, it purchased Reuters Group to form Thomson Reut ...

a year later. Thomson Corporation placed the acquired MLR divisions into Gale. Thomson Learning including Gale became Cengage Group in 2007, Simon & Schuster licensed the Scribner trademarks for trade publishing from Gale. Simon & Schuster reorganized their adult imprints into four divisions in 2012. Scribner became the Scribner Publishing Group and would expand to include Touchstone Books, which had previously been part of Free Press. The other divisions are Atria Publishing Group,

Publishing Group, and the Gallery Publishing Group. Susan Moldow would lead the new Scribner division as president. , the reference division and the trademarks are owned by Cengage Group and the trade division is owned by

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts KKR & Co. Inc., also known as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., is an American global private-equity and investment company. , the firm had completed private-equity investments in portfolio companies with approximately $710 billion of total ...

Presidents

* Charles Scribner I (1821–1871), 1846 to 1871 * John Blair Scribner (1850–1879), 1871 to 1879 * Charles Scribner II (1854–1930), 1879 to 1930 * Arthur Hawley Scribner (1859–1932), 1930 to 1932 * Charles Scribner III (1890–1952), 1932 to 1952 * Charles Scribner IV (1921–1995), 1952 to 1984

Notable authors

Notable authors under Charles Scribner II

* Edith Wharton *

Notable authors under Charles Scribner's Sons

Kenneth Grahame Kenneth Grahame ( ; 8 March 1859 – 6 July 1932) was a British writer. He is best remembered for the classic of children's literature ''The Wind in the Willows'' (1908). Born in Scotland, he spent most of his childhood with his grandmother in ...

* Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings * Ring Lardner * Thomas Wolfe *

Reinhold Niebuhr Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (June 21, 1892 – June 1, 1971) was an American Reformed theologian, ethicist, commentator on politics and public affairs, and professor at Union Theological Seminary for more than 30 years. Niebuhr was one of Ameri ...

* Susanne Langer

Notable authors under Maxwell Perkins and John Hall Wheelock

* F. Scott Fitzgerald * Thomas Wolfe *

* Ring Lardner * Erskine Caldwell * S. S. Van Dine * James Jones * Alan Paton

Notable authors under Simon and Schuster

Simon & Schuster has published thousands of books from thousands of authors. This list represents some of the more notable authors (those who are culturally significant or have had several bestsellers) from Scribner since becoming part of Simon & Schuster. For a more extensive list, see List of Simon & Schuster authors. * Annie Proulx * Andrew Solomon * Anthony Doerr *

* Frank McCourt *

(1998–present for new releases; 2016–present for re-releases in US/Canada) * Jeanette Walls

Names

* ''Baker & Scribner'', until the death of Baker in 1850 * Charles Scribner Company * ''Charles Scribner's Sons,'' name retained for the reference division, now part of Gale * ''Scribner''

Bookstores

The Scribner Bookstores are now owned by

Barnes & Noble Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. The company operates approximately 600 retail stores across the United States. Barnes & Noble operates mainly through its B ...

References

External links

Archives of Charles Scribner's Sons at the Princeton University Library, Manuscript Division

Charles Scribner's Sons Art Reference Department records at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art

Charles Scribner's Sons: An Illustrated Chronology
Princeton Library
''Q&A'' interview with Charles Scribner III on ''Scribners: Five Generations in Publishing'', February 11, 2024

C-SPAN Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American Cable television in the United States, cable and Satellite television in the United States, satellite television network, created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a Non ...

{{Authority control Book publishing companies based in New York (state) Publishing companies based in New York City Simon & Schuster Publishing companies established in 1846 1846 establishments in New York (state) Barnes & Noble Cengage Princeton University