Julian Messner, Inc. was an American publishing house founded in 1933. Its best-selling books included 1956's '' Peyton Place''. In the 1960s it became a division of

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...

, and continued as a children's imprint into the 1990s.

History

Julian Messner, previously an executive with

Boni & Liveright Boni & Liveright (pronounced "BONE-eye" and "LIV-right") is an American trade book publisher established in 1917 in New York City by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright. Over the next sixteen years the firm, which changed its name to Horace Live ...

, and his wife Kathryn founded the firm in 1933, opening an office on West 40th Street in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, and planning to publish juvenile books along with a small offering of adult books.Toth, Emily
''Inside Peyton Place: The Life of Grace Metalious''
(1980), p. 101. They published four books in their first year, including ''Senator Marlowe's Daughter'' by

Frances Parkinson Keyes Frances Parkinson Keyes (July 21, 1885 – July 3, 1970) was an American author who wrote about her life as the wife of a U.S. Senator and novels set in New England, Louisiana, and Europe. A convert to Roman Catholicism, her later works freq ...

. When Julian Messner died in 1948, Kathryn (they divorced in 1944) became president. At first the idea of a woman president caused concern, and the board appointed a vice-president in charge of the president, an anomaly which soon became clear was not needed. She served as president until her death in August 1964; "Mrs. Kathryn G. Messner, 61, Chief of Publishing House, Dies"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', August 5, 1964."Julian Messner, Publisher, Dead; Founder in 1933 and President of Book Firm Offered Award for Tolerance Volume"
''The New York Times'', February 9, 1948. the company was sold by the end of the year to

Pocket Books Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books. History Pocket Books produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in the United States in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing in ...

."Messner Bought by Pocket Books"
''The New York Times'', December 31, 1964. Pocket was then acquired by

in 1966, during the 1960s wave of consolidation in the publishing industry.Brier, Evan
''A Novel Marketplace: Mass Culture, the Book Trade, and Postwar American Fiction''
p. 123 (2010). "Julian Messner" continued as a children's imprint under Simon & Schuster (S&S). The imprint later fell under Macmillan Library Reference (S&S had acquired Macmillan, Inc., in 1994, and

Pearson Pearson may refer to: Organizations Education *Lester B. Pearson College, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada *Pearson College (UK), London, owned by Pearson PLC *Lester B. Pearson High School (disambiguation) Companies *Pearson PLC, a UK-based int ...

acquired the educational, professional, and reference businesses of S&S in 1998), and shut down six children's imprints including Julian Messner in 1999.Hane, Paula J. (June 21, 1999)
"Thomson’s Gale Group Acquires MacMillan Library Reference USA"
''NewsBreaks''.Milliot, Jim (31 May 1999)

''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...

''. In 1958, the company published a fictionalized biography of baseball player

Warren Spahn Warren Edward Spahn (April 23, 1921 – November 24, 2003) was an American professional baseball pitcher who played 21 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). A left-handed pitcher, Spahn played in 1942 and then from 1946 until 1965, most notabl ...

for young readers, which was full of incorrect information and even positive false claims (such as claiming that Spahn had won a

Bronze Star The Bronze Star Medal (BSM) is a United States Armed Forces decoration awarded to members of the United States Armed Forces for either heroic achievement, heroic service, meritorious achievement, or meritorious service in a combat zone. Wh ...

, which was untrue). Spahn prevailed in a lawsuit against Messner, which is a leading case in the concept of

false light In US law, false light is a tort concerning privacy that is similar to the tort of defamation. The privacy laws in the United States include a non-public person's right to protection from publicity that creates an untrue or misleading impre ...

, a claim related to

defamation Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...

.Mathewson, Joe
''Law and Ethics for Today's Journalist: A Concise Guide''
(2014), p. 81.Yasser, Ray
"Warren Spahn's Legal Legacy: The Right to Be Free from False Praise"
18 Seton Hall. J. Sports & Enter L. 49 (2008).

References

{{Pearson Publishing companies established in 1933 Book publishing companies based in New York (state) Book publishing company imprints