Harper (publisher)

Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City.

History

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'' (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 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 to leave Scribner's, 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 HarperCollins. 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 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
* 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
* Erin Hunter
* Aldous Huxley
* Henry James
* Crockett Johnson
* Bruce Judson
* Harper Lee
* Martin Luther King Jr.
* Barbara Kingsolver
* Ruth Krauss
* Ursula K. Le Guin
* Armistead Maupin
* André Maurois
* Herman Melville
* Caroline Pafford Miller
* Peter G. Miller
* Dick Morris
* Sarah Palin
* Lincoln Peirce
* Howard Pyle
* Leland M. Roth
* Laura Schlessinger
* Maurice Sendak
* Sara Shepard
* Shel Silverstein
* Betty Smith
* Lemony Snicket
* Howard Spring
* Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
* Mark Twain
* Charles Dudley Warner
* E. B. White
* Simon Winchester
* Laura Ingalls Wilder
* Thornton Wilder
* Richard Wright

See also

* Books in the United States
* Brooks Thomas
* ''Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature''
* Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises
* The Long Short Cut

References

Further reading

*
* Barnes, James J. "Edward Lytton Bulwer and the Publishing Firm of Harper & Brothers". ''American Literature'' (1966): 35–48
in JSTOR
* D'Amato, Martina
"'The Harper Establishment'; or, How a New York Publishing Giant Was Made".
* Exman, Eugene. ''The brothers Harper: a unique publishing partnership and its impact upon the cultural life of America from 1817 to 1853'' (Harper & Row, 1965)
*
*
* Mellman, John A. (2017)

publishinghistory.com.

Primary sources

*

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