(Redirected from HarperPrism)'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, 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
Bibles, and in
1848 Collins's son Sir
William Collins 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. The is largely due to legendary children's book editor
Ursula Nordstrom, 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 bestsellers 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 HarperCollins.
In
2003, Ecco, an
imprint of HarperCollins, published
Edith Grossman's new
translation of
Cervantes's ''
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 guides, as well as English and bilingual dictionaries based on the
Bank of English, a large
corpus 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.
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
★ HarperBuisness Essentials
★ 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
★ HarperOne
★ HarperTeen
★ HarperTorch
★ HarperTrophy
★ Joanna Cotler Books
★
Julie Andrews Collection
★ Katherine Tegen Books
★ Laura Geringer Books
★ Morrow Cookbooks
★ Rayo
★
William Morrow
★
Zondervan
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
References
1. 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.
2. Marcus, Leonard S (editor) (1998). ''Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom'' HarperTrophy: New York. ISBN 0-06-446235-8
External links
★
HarperCollins Publishers India
★
HarperCollins Publishers US
★
HarperCollins Publishers UK
★
Collins UK
★
HarperCollinsChildrens US
★
HarperCollins Publishers AUS
★
HarperCollins Publishers CAN
★
Zondervan
★
Online Dictionary (registration required)