Doubleday is an American publishing company. It was founded as the Doubleday & McClure Company in 1897 and was the largest in the United States by 1947. It published the work of mostly U.S. authors under a number of imprints and distributed them through its own stores. In 2009 Doubleday merged with

Knopf Publishing Group Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers i ...

to form the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, which is now part of Penguin Random House. In 2019, the official website presents Doubleday as an imprint, not a publisher.

History

The firm was founded as Doubleday & McClure Company in 1897 by Frank Nelson Doubleday in partnership with

Samuel Sidney McClure Samuel Sidney McClure (February 17, 1857 – March 21, 1949) was an Irish-American publisher who became known as a key figure in investigative, or muckraking, journalism. He co-founded and ran ''McClure's Magazine'' from 1893 to 1911, which ran n ...

. McClure had founded the first U.S. newspaper syndicate in 1884 ( McClure Syndicate) and the monthly '' McClure's Magazine'' in 1893. One of their first

bestseller A bestseller is a book or other media noted for its top selling status, with bestseller lists published by newspapers, magazines, and book store chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and specialties (novel, nonfiction book, cookb ...

s was '' The Day's Work'' by Rudyard Kipling, a short story collection that Macmillan published in Britain late in 1898. Other authors published by the company in its early years include W. Somerset Maugham and

Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and short story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in t ...

Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Theodore Roosevelt III ( ), often known as Theodore Jr.Morris, Edmund (1979). ''The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt''. index.While it was President Theodore Roosevelt who was legally named Theodore Roosevelt Jr., the President's fame made it simple ...

later served as a vice-president of the company. The partnership ended in 1900. McClure and John Sanborn Phillips, the co-founder of his magazine, formed McClure, Phillips and Company. Doubleday and Walter Hines Page formed Doubleday, Page & Company. The racist but bestselling novels of

Thomas Dixon Jr. Thomas Frederick Dixon Jr. (January 11, 1864 – April 3, 1946) was an American white supremacist, Baptist minister, politician, lawyer, lecturer, novelist, playwright, and filmmaker. Referred to as a "professional racist", Dixon wrote two best ...

('' The Leopard's Spots'', 1902; '' The Clansman'', 1905) "changed a struggling publishing venture into the empire that Doubleday was to become". At the same time, Doubleday helped Dixon launch his writing career. Page and Dixon were both from North Carolina and had known each other in Raleigh. In 1910, Doubleday, Page & Co. moved its operations, which included a train station, to Garden City. The company purchased much of the land on the east side of Franklin Avenue, and estate homes were built for many of its executives on Fourth Street. Co-founder and Garden City resident Walter Hines Page was named Ambassador to Great Britain in 1916. In 1922 the company founded its juvenile department, the second in the nation, with May Massee as head. The founder's son Nelson Doubleday joined the firm in the same year. In 1927, Doubleday, Page merged with the George H. Doran Company, creating Doubleday, Doran, then the largest publishing business in the English-speaking world.

Doubleday Canada Limited Doubleday Canada is an imprint of the publishing company Penguin Random House Canada. The company used to be known as Forboys. It was incorporated in 1936, and since 1945 it has been known as Doubleday Canada Limited. In 1986 parent company Doub ...

launches in the thirties. In 1944, Doubleday, Doran acquired the Philadelphia medical publisher Blakiston. In 1946, the company became Doubleday and Company. Nelson Doubleday resigned as president, but continued as chairman of the board until his death on January 11, 1949. Douglas Black took over as president from 1946 to 1963. His tenure attracted numerous public figures to the publishing company, including Dwight D. Eisenhower, Harry S. Truman,

Douglas MacArthur Douglas MacArthur (26 January 18805 April 1964) was an American military leader who served as General of the Army for the United States, as well as a field marshal to the Philippine Army. He had served with distinction in World War I, was C ...

, Robert Taft, and André Malraux. He was a strong opponent of censorship and felt that it was his responsibility to the American public to publish controversial titles. Black also expanded Doubleday's publishing program by opening two new printing plants; creating a new line of quality paperbacks, under the imprint Anchor Books; attracting new book clubs to its book club division; opening 30 new retail stores in 25 cities; and opening new editorial offices in San Francisco, London, and Paris. By 1947, Doubleday was the largest publisher in the US, with annual sales of over 30 million books. In 1954, Doubleday sold Blakiston to McGraw-Hill. Doubleday's son-in-law John Sargent was president and CEO from 1963 to 1978. In 1964, Doubleday acquired the educational publisher Laidlaw. In 1967 the company purchased the Dallas-based Trigg-Vaughn group of radio and TV stations to create Doubleday Broadcasting. After expanding during the 1970s and 1980s, Doubleday sold the broadcasting division in 1986.

Nelson Doubleday, Jr. Nelson Doubleday Jr. (July 20, 1933 – June 17, 2015) was the owner and the next-to-last president and CEO of Doubleday and Company before its sale to Bertelsmann A.G. in 1986. He was instrumental in the company's purchase of the New York Mets ...

succeeded John Sargent as president and CEO from 1978 to 1985. In 1976, Doubleday bought paperback publisher

Dell Publishing Dell Publishing Company, Inc. is an American publisher of books, magazines and comic books, that was founded in 1921 by George T. Delacorte Jr. with $10,000 (approx. $145,000 in 2021), two employees and one magazine title, ''I Confess'', and ...

. In 1980, the company bought the New York Mets baseball team. The Mets defeated the Boston Red Sox to win the World Series in 1986 in a 7-game contest. In 1981, Doubleday promoted James R. McLaughlin to the presidency of Dell Publishing. Sales slowed in the early eighties and earnings fell precipitously. Doubleday, Jr., brought James McLaughlin over (from subsidiary Dell) to help streamline and downsize. McLaughlin went on to succeed Doubleday, Jr., as president and CEO, with Doubleday, Jr., becoming chairman of the board. By 1986 the firm was a fully integrated international communications company, doing trade publishing, mass-market paperback publishing, book clubs, and book manufacturing, together with ventures in broadcasting and advertising. The company had offices in London and Paris and wholly owned subsidiaries in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, with joint ventures in the UK and the Netherlands. Nelson Doubleday, Jr. sold the publishing company to

Bertelsmann Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA () is a German private multinational conglomerate corporation based in Gütersloh, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is one of the world's largest media conglomerates, and is also active in the service sector and ...

in 1986 for a reported $475 million, with James R. McLaughlin resigning on December 17, 1986. The deal did not include the Mets which Nelson Doubleday and minority owner Fred Wilpon had purchased from Doubleday & Company for $85 million. In

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

, Doubleday sold his stake in the Mets to Wilpon for $135 million after a feud over the monetary value of the team. After the purchase, Bertelsmann sold Laidlaw to

Macmillan Inc. Macmillan Inc. is a defunct American book publishing company. Originally established as the American division of the British Macmillan Publishers, the two were later separated and acquired by other companies, with the remnants of the original A ...

In 1988, portions of the firm became part of the Bantam Doubleday

Group, which in turn became a division of Random House in 1998. Doubleday was combined in a group with Broadway Books, Anchor Books was combined with

Vintage Books Vintage Books is a trade paperback publishing imprint of Penguin Random House originally established by Alfred A. Knopf in 1954. The company was purchased by Random House in April 1960, and a British division was set up in 1990. After Random Hous ...

as a division of Knopf, while Bantam and Dell became a separate group. In 1996, Doubleday founded the Christian publisher WaterBrook Press. WaterBrook acquired Harold Shaw Publishers in 2000 and Multnomah Publishers in 2006. In late 2008 and early 2009, the Doubleday imprint merged with

to form the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. In October 2008, Doubleday laid off about 10% of its staff (16 people) across all departments. The Broadway, Doubleday Business, Doubleday Religion, and WaterBrook Multnomah divisions were moved to Crown Publishing Group.

Presidents

Frank Doubleday Frank Nelson Doubleday (January 8, 1862 – January 30, 1934), known to friends and family as “Effendi” (phonetic "F.N.D."), founded the Doubleday & McClure Company in 1897, which later operated under other names. Starting work at the age o ...

, founder, 1897–1922 * Nelson Doubleday, 1922–1946 * Douglas Black, 1946–1963 * John Turner Sargent, Sr., 1963–1978 *

, 1978–1983 *James R. McLaughlin, 1983–1986

Notable editors

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Jacqueline Lee Kennedy Onassis ( ; July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994) was an American socialite, writer, photographer, and book editor who served as first lady of the United States from 1961 to 1963, as the wife of President John F. Kennedy. A pop ...

(associate editor 1978–1982, senior editor 1982–1994) * T. O'Conor Sloane III (senior editor 1960–1977) * May Massee (head of juvenile 1922–1932)

Notable authors

* Chinua Achebe * Andre Agassi *

Felipe Alfau Felipe Alfau (24 August 1902 – 18 February 1999) was a Spanish-born American novelist and poet. Most of his works were written in English. Biography Born in Barcelona, Alfau emigrated to the United States with his family at the age of ...

Isaac Asimov yi, יצחק אזימאװ , birth_date = , birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR , spouse = , relatives = , children = 2 , death_date = , death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S. , nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (192 ...

Margaret Atwood Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of non-fiction, nin ...

* John Barth *

Evelyn Berckman Evelyn Domenica Berckman (18 October 1900 – 18 September 1978) was an American writer noted for her detective and Gothic horror novels. In addition to her novels and screenplays, she also wrote four non-fiction titles about British naval hi ...

* Ray Bradbury * Dan Brown * Bill Bryson * Pat Conroy *

Philip K. Dick Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928March 2, 1982), often referred to by his initials PKD, was an American science fiction writer. He wrote 44 novels and about 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his l ...

* Theodore Dreiser * Daphne du Maurier * Raymond E. Feist *

Graeme Gibson Thomas Graeme Cameron Gibson (9 August 1934 – 18 September 2019) was a Canadian novelist.Erving Goffman Erving Goffman (11 June 1922 – 19 November 1982) was a Canadian-born sociology, sociologist, Social psychology (sociology), social psychologist, and writer, considered by some "the most influential American sociologist of the twentieth ...

* John Grisham * Mark Haddon *

Arthur Hailey Arthur Frederick Hailey, AE (5 April 1920 – 24 November 2004) was a British-Canadian novelist whose plot-driven storylines were set against the backdrops of various industries. His books, which include such best sellers as ''Hotel'' (1965), ...

Alex Haley Alexander Murray Palmer Haley (August 11, 1921 – February 10, 1992) was an American writer and the author of the 1976 book '' Roots: The Saga of an American Family.'' ABC adapted the book as a television miniseries of the same name and a ...

* Noah Hawley * Dolores Hitchens *

Laura Z. Hobson Laura Zametkin Hobson (June 19, 1900 – February 28, 1986) was an American writer, best known for her novels ''Gentleman's Agreement'' (1947) and ''Consenting Adult'' (1975). Early life and career Laura Kean Zametkin was born on June 19, 1900So ...

* Lilly Singh * Michael Jackson * Carl Jung * Michio Kaku *

Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high s ...

* Rudyard Kipling * Jon Krakauer *

Jonathan Lethem Jonathan Allen Lethem (; born February 19, 1964) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His first novel, ''Gun, with Occasional Music'', a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was publishe ...

* Alistair MacLean * Peter Mayle * Andy McNab * Herman Melville *

Michael A. O'Donnell Michael A. O'Donnell (born June 17, 1956, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania) is an American writer and researcher and co-principal investigator of the Adolescent Wellness Research Project, jointly with University of Alabama family strengths scholar Nick ...

* Kirby Page *

Chuck Palahniuk Charles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk (; born February 21, 1962) is an American freelance journalist and novelist who describes his work as transgressional fiction. He has published 19 novels, three nonfiction books, two graphic novels, and two adul ...

Vera Pavlova Vera Anatolyevna Pavlova (russian: Вера Анатольевна Павлова; born 1963) is a Russian poet. Biography Vera Pavlova was born in Moscow, 1963. She studied at the Oktyabryskaya Revolyutsiya Music College and only started publish ...

* Terry Pratchett *

Christopher Reich Christopher Reich is a Swiss American author. Christopher Reich was born in Tokyo on November 12, 1961, son to Willy Wolfgang Reich and Mildred Reich. His family moved to the United States in 1965. He graduated undergrad from Georgetown Universi ...

Judith Rossner Judith Rossner (March 31, 1935 – August 9, 2005) was an American novelist, best known for her acclaimed best sellers '' Looking for Mr. Goodbar'' (1975) and ''August'' (1983). Life and career, 1935–1973 Born in New York City, on March 31, 1 ...

Bill Strickland William E. Strickland (born August 25, 1947, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is a community leader, author, and the President and CEO of the non-profit Manchester Bidwell Corporation based in Pittsburgh. The company's subsidiaries, the Mancheste ...

* Paul Shaffer *

Una Lucy Silberrad Una Lucy Silberrad ( – ) was a British author. She wrote about 40 novels, often characterized as "middlebrow", which highlight conservative middle-class virtues even as they focus on capable female protagonists. Topics It was not until 1899 ...

* Wallace Stegner * Immanuel Velikovsky *

Jose Antonio Villarreal Jose is the English transliteration of the Hebrew and Aramaic name ''Yose'', which is etymologically linked to ''Yosef'' or Joseph. The name was popular during the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods. *Jose ben Abin *Jose ben Akabya * Jose the Galil ...

* Colson Whitehead * Jacqueline Wilson * P. G. Wodehouse *

William H. Whyte William Hollingsworth "Holly" Whyte Jr. (July 11, 1917 – July 11, 1999) was an American urbanist, sociologist, organizational analyst, journalist and people-watcher. He identified the elements that create vibrant public spaces within the city ...

* Hanya Yanagihara

Notable employees

* William Faulkner worked part-time at the Doubleday Bookstore in New York City in 1921.

Imprints

The following are imprints that exist or have existed under Doubleday: * Anchor Books, produced quality paperbacks for bookstores; named for the anchor that (along with a dolphin) forms Doubleday's colophon; now part of the Knopf Publishing Group's ''Vintage Anchor'' unit * Best in Children's Books, a mail-order collection of original children's short story anthologies * Blakiston Co., medical and scientific books. Sold in 1947 to McGraw-Hill * Blue Ribbon Books, purchased in 1939 from Reynal & Hitchcock *

Book League of America The Book League of America, Inc. was a US book publisher and mail order book sales club. It was established in 1930, a few years after the Book of the Month Club. Its founder was Lawrence Lamm, previously an editor at Macmillan Inc. The com ...

, contemporary and world classic literature, purchased in 1936 * The Crime Club, active through much of the 20th century, publishing mystery and detective novels, most notably the Fu Manchu series by Sax Rohmer and the

Saint In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of Q-D-Š, holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and Christian denomination, denominat ...

series by Leslie Charteris * Garden City Publishing Co., originally established as a separate firm by Nelson Doubleday, Garden City's books were primarily reprints of books first offered by Doubleday, printed from the original plates but on less expensive paper. It was named for the village of the same name on

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...

in which Doubleday was long headquartered (until 1986), and which still houses Bookspan, the direct marketer of general interest and specialty book clubs run by Doubleday Direct and Book of the Month Club holdings. * Image Books, Catholic Books, moved to Crown Publishing Group *

Nan A. Talese Nan Talese (née Ahearn; born December 19, 1933) is a retired American editor, and a veteran of the New York publishing industry. Talese was the senior vice president of Doubleday. From 1990 to 2020, Talese was the publisher and editorial direct ...

/Doubleday, a literary imprint established in 1990. Talese, the imprint's publisher and editorial director, is a senior vice president of Doubleday. * Permabooks, paperback division established in 1948 * Rimington & Hooper, high-quality limited editions * Triangle Books, purchased in 1939 from Reynal & Hitchcock; sold inexpensive books through chain stores * Zenith Books, aimed at African-American youths

Bookstores

*Doubleday Bookstores were purchased by

Barnes & Noble Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller. It is a Fortune 1000 company and the bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. As of July 7, 2020, the company operates 614 retail stores across all 50 U. ...

in 1990 and operated by

B. Dalton B. Dalton Bookseller (often called B. Dalton or B. Dalton's) was an American retail bookstore chain founded in 1966 by Bruce Dayton, a member of the same family that operated the Dayton's department store chain. B. Dalton expanded to become the ...

References

External links

* – Doubleday imprint at KnopfDoubleday.com
Records of the publishing firm Doubleday and Company, Inc., selected for preservation by Ken McCormick
at Library of Congress
Collection of Doubleday and Co. drafts, proofs, and other material re ''At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends'', and ''The White House Years'' by Dwight D. Eisenhower, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Doubleday (Publisher) Book publishing companies based in New York (state) Publishing companies based in New York City Doubleday family New York Mets owners Random House Publishing companies established in 1897 1897 establishments in New York (state)