Harcourt (publisher)
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Harcourt () was an American
publishing Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
firm with a long history of publishing fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. The company was last based in
San Diego, California San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...
, with editorial/sales/marketing/rights offices in New York City and
Orlando, Florida Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County, Florida, Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Greater Orlando, Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, acco ...
, and was known at different stages in its history as Harcourt Brace, & Co. and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. From 1919 to 1982, it was based in New York City.
Houghton Mifflin The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...
acquired Harcourt in 2007. It incorporated the Harcourt name to form
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (; HMH) is an American publisher of textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults. The company is based in the Financial Dist ...
. As of 2012, all Harcourt books that have been re-released are under the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt name. The Harcourt Children's Books division left the name intact on all of its books under that name as part of HMH. In 2007 the U.S. Schools Education and Trade Publishing parts of Harcourt Education were sold by
Reed Elsevier RELX plc (pronounced "Rel-ex") is a British multinational information and analytics company headquartered in London, England. Its businesses provide scientific, technical and medical information and analytics; legal information and analytics; ...
to Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep Group.
Harcourt Assessment Harcourt Assessment was a company that published and distributed educational and psychological assessment tools and therapy resources and provided educational assessment and data management services for national, state, district and local assessme ...
and Harcourt Education International were acquired by
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 ...
, the international education and information company, in January 2008.


History


World Book Company (1905)

The first-created component of what would eventually become Harcourt was the World Book Company (unrelated to the
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
-based World Book, Inc. publisher of reference works), which opened its first office in
Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...
in 1905 and published English-language educational materials for schools in the
Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...
. The company later moved to New York City, where it became a test publisher. Much of the company's success was based on the work of Arthur S. Otis. He was best known for the intelligence tests he developed for the U.S. Army. Millions of World War I draftees took Otis tests. World Book Company became the first publisher of group-administered tests measuring mental ability when it published Otis's Group Intelligence Scale in 1918. Otis became a World Book employee in 1921. By 1960, World Book had a portfolio of educational tests, including the Stanford Achievement Test (1923), the Metropolitan Achievement Test (1932) and the Otis Mental Ability Test (1936).


Harcourt, Brace & Howe (1919) and Harcourt, Brace & Company

Alfred Harcourt and
Donald Brace Donald Clifford Brace (December 27, 1881, West Winfield, New York – September 20, 1955) was an American publisher and founder of the publishing company Harcourt, Brace & Howe in 1919. Brace graduated from Columbia College of Columbia University ...
were friends at
Columbia College of Columbia University Columbia College is the oldest undergraduate college of Columbia University, situated on the university's main campus in Morningside Heights in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded by the Church of England in 1754 as King' ...
in New York, from which they both graduated in 1904. The two worked for
Henry Holt and Company Henry Holt and Company is an American book-publishing company based in New York City. One of the oldest publishers in the United States, it was founded in 1866 by Henry Holt and Frederick Leypoldt. Currently, the company publishes in the fields ...
before founding their own publishing company in 1919, Harcourt, Brace & Howe, along with editor
Will David Howe Will David Howe (August 25, 1873 – December 6, 1946) was an American educator, editor, and nonfiction writer. He was born in Charlestown, Indiana. He taught at Butler University and Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of ...
. After Howe left the company in 1921, the partners changed the name to Harcourt, Brace & Company. They published the works of a number of writers who became internationally renowned, including
Walter Lippmann Walter Lippmann (September 23, 1889 – December 14, 1974) was an American writer, reporter and political commentator. With a career spanning 60 years, he is famous for being among the first to introduce the concept of Cold War, coining the te ...
,
Sinclair Lewis Harry Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American writer and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States (and the first from the Americas) to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, which was ...
,
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...
, T. S. Eliot,
James Thurber James Grover Thurber (December 8, 1894 – November 2, 1961) was an American cartoonist, writer, humorist, journalist and playwright. He was best known for his cartoons and short stories, published mainly in ''The New Yorker'' and collected ...
,
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...
,
Valentine Davies Valentine Loewi Davies (August 25, 1905 – July 23, 1961) was an American film and television writer, producer, and director. His film credits included ''Miracle on 34th Street'' (1947), ''Chicken Every Sunday'' (1949), '' It Happens Every Sprin ...
and
Robert Penn Warren Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the liter ...
. Firms acquired by Harcourt, Brace include Brewer, Warren and Putnam; and
Reynal & Hitchcock Reynal and Hitchcock was a publishing company in New York City. Founded in 1933 by Eugene Reynal and Curtice Hitchcock, in 1948 it was absorbed by Harcourt, Brace.'' American Authors and Books: 1640 to Present Day'' Third Revised Edition, Crown ...
.


Harcourt, Brace & World (1960) and successors

Harcourt, Brace & World only existed between 1960 and 1970. The name Harcourt, Brace & World was used on books that were copyrighted as early as 1931, if not before. By 1960, Harcourt Brace led the market in high school textbook publishing, but had little presence in the elementary school market. That year,
William Jovanovich William Jovanovich (1920 – 4 December 2001) was an American publisher, author, and businessman of Montenegro, Montenegrin descent. He served as the director of the publishing firm Harcourt (publisher), Harcourt, Brace & World from 1954 to 19 ...
, who had become president of the company in 1954, took the company public and merged Harcourt Brace & Company with World Book Company to create Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. This strategic action improved the position of Harcourt Brace because World Book was an established elementary textbook publisher and test publisher. In 1968, Harcourt, Brace & World entered the trade magazine business by acquiring Ojibway Press. In 1969, Harcourt acquired
Academic Press Academic Press (AP) is an academic book publisher founded in 1941. It was acquired by Harcourt, Brace & World in 1969. Reed Elsevier bought Harcourt in 2000, and Academic Press is now an imprint of Elsevier. Academic Press publishes reference ...
.


Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

In 1970, the company was known as Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (HBJ), with
William Jovanovich William Jovanovich (1920 – 4 December 2001) was an American publisher, author, and businessman of Montenegro, Montenegrin descent. He served as the director of the publishing firm Harcourt (publisher), Harcourt, Brace & World from 1954 to 19 ...
as chairman. That same year, the company acquired The Psychological Corporation. Under Jovanovich's leadership, the company diversified into non-publishing businesses such as insurance and business consulting. It also bought several theme parks—including
SeaWorld SeaWorld is an American theme park chain with headquarters in Orlando, Florida. It is a proprietor of marine mammal parks, oceanariums, animal theme parks, and rehabilitation centers owned by SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment (one park will be ...
, which it acquired in 1976 for $46 million. Harcourt also published mass-market paperback books with
Pyramid Books Jove Books, formerly known as Pyramid Books, is an American paperback and eBook publishing imprint, founded as an independent paperback house in 1949 by Almat Magazine Publishers (Alfred R. Plaine and Matthew Huttner). The company was sold to ...
, which it bought out in 1974 and renamed Jove Books. It sold this section to the Putnam Berkley Group in 1979. In 1985, HBJ merged in a stock trade with
Cypress Gardens Cypress Gardens was a botanical garden and theme park near Winter Haven, Florida that operated from 1936 to 2009. As of 2011, the botanical garden portion had been preserved inside the newly formed Legoland Florida. History Billed as Florida' ...
.
Jim Monaghan Jim or JIM may refer to: * Jim (given name), a given name * Jim, a diminutive form of the given name James * Jim, a short form of the given name Jimmy * OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism * ''Jim'' (comics), a series by Jim Woodring * ''Jim' ...
sold Circus World for stock to Harcourt Brace Jovanovich on Tuesday, May 10, 1986, at 3:50 a.m. HBJ had a new idea for the park, and closed the park at opening time that day to rebuilding it into
Boardwalk and Baseball Boardwalk and Baseball was a theme park built near Haines City, Florida, at the south-east corner of the Interstate 4-US 27 interchange. It replaced Circus World at the same location, and was owned by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Park Group (now Har ...
. HBJ Park Group opened SeaWorld San Antonio in 1988. After an eight-year stint at Macmillan Publishing Company, P, William's son, joined Harcourt in 1980. In 1984, Peter was named head of the company's $400 million college textbook and professional division. In 1987, days after a failed attempted takeover of HBJ, British publisher Robert Maxwell sued to stop the company from carrying out a $3 billion recapitalization plan. Eventually, the company divested its trade magazines to the buyout firm Kidder, Peabody & Co. in 1987. The company divested its theme park division in 1989 to
Busch Entertainment SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment is an American theme park and entertainment company headquartered in Orlando, Florida. The company is a subsidiary of SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. and owns and operates thirteen recreational destinations in the Unit ...
for $1.1 billion, when they expected $1.5 billion, to meet its large debt. In December 1989, Peter Jovanovich became chief executive officer of the company, replacing Ralph D. Caulo, who left after the theme park sale.


Harcourt General and Harcourt, Inc.

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich was acquired in 1991 for more than $1.5 billion by
General Cinema Corporation General Cinema Corporation, also known as General Cinema, GCC, or General Cinema Theatres, was a chain of movie theaters in the United States. At its peak, the company operated about 1,500 screens, some of which were among the first cinemas certif ...
, a diversified company that operated a national chain of movie theaters, and retailers such as
Neiman Marcus Neiman Marcus Group, Inc. is an American integrated luxury retailer headquartered in Dallas, Texas, which owns Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Horchow, and Last Call. Since September 2021, NMG has been owned by a group of investment compani ...
and
Bergdorf Goodman Bergdorf Goodman Inc. is a luxury department store based on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York. The company was founded in 1899 by Herman Bergdorf and was later owned and managed by Edwin Goodman, and later his son, Andrew Goodman. ...
. In 1993 General Cinema Corporation renamed itself Harcourt General and restored the 1921 to 1960 name "Harcourt, Brace & Company" to its publishing division as Harcourt Brace (no comma). At the end of the year it divested its cinema division. In 1994, Harcourt General acquired the religious imprint Brown-ROA from William C. Brown Company, a division of
Times Mirror Company The Times Mirror Company was an American newspaper and print media publisher from 1884 until 2000. History It had its roots in the Mirror Printing and Binding House, a commercial printing company founded in 1873, and the ''Los Angeles Times'' ...
. It was renamed Harcourt Religion in 1999. In 1995, Harcourt General acquired Assessment Systems, Inc., a professional test company. In 1997, Harcourt General acquired
National Education Moral and national education (MNE), initially known as Moral and civic education (MCE), was a school curriculum proposed by the Education Bureau of Hong Kong in 2012. The subject was controversial for its stance on the Chinese Communist Part ...
and Steck-Vaughn. In 1998, Harcourt General acquired
Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Morgan Kaufmann Publishers is a Burlington, Massachusetts (San Francisco, California until 2008) based publisher specializing in computer science and engineering content. Since 1984, Morgan Kaufmann has published content on information technolog ...
. In 1999, Harcourt General divested its retail division and shortened the publishing division name to Harcourt, Inc.


Reed Elsevier Group plc

In 2001, the Anglo-Dutch publishing company
Reed Elsevier RELX plc (pronounced "Rel-ex") is a British multinational information and analytics company headquartered in London, England. Its businesses provide scientific, technical and medical information and analytics; legal information and analytics; ...
acquired Harcourt, Inc. Harcourt Trade Publishers was a member of the Reed Elsevier Group plc (NYSE: RUK and ENL), a publisher and information provider operating in four global industry sectors: science and medical, legal, education, and business. As part of the deal, Reed Elsevier sold Harcourt's higher education division, and the NETglobal (formerly National Education Training), Assessment Systems, Inc (ASI), and Drake Beam Morin businesses to
Thomson Corporation The Thomson Corporation was one of the world's largest information companies. It was established in 1989 following a merger between International Thomson Organisation Ltd (ITOL) and Thomson Newspapers. In 2008, it purchased Reuters Group to fo ...
. In 2004, Harcourt acquired Saxon Publishers, publishers of
Saxon math Saxon math, developed by John Saxon (educator), John Saxon (1923–1996), is a teaching method for incremental learning of mathematics created in the 1980s. It involves teaching a new mathematical concept every day and constantly reviewing old con ...
materials. Reed Elsevier then comprised the following divisions:
Elsevier Elsevier () is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as ''The Lancet'', ''Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, '' Trends'', th ...
(science and medical),
LexisNexis LexisNexis is a part of the RELX corporation that sells data analytics products and various databases that are accessed through online portals, including portals for computer-assisted legal research (CALR), newspaper search, and consumer informa ...
(legal), Harcourt Education (education), and
Reed Business RELX plc (pronounced "Rel-ex") is a British multinational information and analytics company headquartered in London, England. Its businesses provide scientific, technical and medical information and analytics; legal information and analytics; ...
(business).


Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep Group

On February 15, 2007, Reed Elsevier announced its intention to sell its education arm, Harcourt Education, of which Harcourt Trade Publishers was a part. According to Reed Chief Executive Crispin Davis, "This is essentially a strategic decision that we want to focus more sharply on our three existing businesses ... with better growth rates." On July 17, 2007, Reed Elsevier announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to sell its Harcourt U.S. Schools Education business, including Harcourt Trade Publishers, to Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep Group. The merger was completed and the Harcourt name ceased being used separately in 2008. Harcourt Religion was sold to Our Sunday Visitor in 2009. Houghton Mifflin Company acquired Harcourt in 2007, combining the Houghton Mifflin and Harcourt names to form
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (; HMH) is an American publisher of textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults. The company is based in the Financial Dist ...
.


Products

Harcourt Trade Publishers published a wide range of books under a variety of imprints, including Harvest Books, Gulliver Books, Silver Whistle, Red Wagon Books, Harcourt Young Classics, Green Light Readers, Voyager Books/Libros Viajeros, Harcourt Paperbacks, Odyssey Classics, and Magic Carpet Books. Harcourt's adult books division was one of the most historic of the American literary publishers. Its backlist included
Sinclair Lewis Harry Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American writer and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States (and the first from the Americas) to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, which was ...
,
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...
, T. S. Eliot,
Robert Penn Warren Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the liter ...
's ''
All the King's Men ''All the King's Men'' is a 1946 novel by Robert Penn Warren. The novel tells the story of charismatic populist governor Willie Stark and his political machinations in the Depression-era Deep South. It was inspired by the real-life story of U ...
'', and
Alice Walker Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was aw ...
's ''
The Color Purple ''The Color Purple'' is a 1982 epistolary novel by American author Alice Walker which won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction.
''. Harcourt also published high-quality literature in translation by acquiring European writers such as
Günter Grass Günter Wilhelm Grass (born Graß; ; 16 October 1927 – 13 April 2015) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was born in the Free City of Da ...
(Germany) and
Umberto Eco Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel ''The Name of the ...
(Italy). Harcourt Children's Books published books for children of all ages, including interactive books for toddlers, picture books for young children, science fiction and fantasy novels for preteen and teens, as well as historical fiction. The house was the original publisher of such classics as ''
Mary Poppins It may refer to: * ''Mary Poppins'' (book series), the original 1934–1988 children's fantasy novels that introduced the character. * Mary Poppins (character), the nanny with magical powers. * ''Mary Poppins'' (film), a 1964 Disney film sta ...
,'' ''
The Borrowers ''The Borrowers'' is a children's fantasy novel by the English author Mary Norton, published by Dent in 1952. It features a family of tiny people who live secretly in the walls and floors of an English house and "borrow" from the big people in ...
'', and '' Half Magic.''


Divisions of Harcourt

Harcourt School Publishers – U.S. elementary (pre-K–6) publisher with particular strength in the four major subject areas of science, reading, math and social studies.
Holt, Rinehart and Winston Holt McDougal is an American publishing company, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, that specializes in textbooks for use in high schools. The Holt name is derived from that of U.S. publisher Henry Holt (1840–1926), co-founder of the e ...
– U.S. secondary (grades 6–12) publisher with a leading position in literature and language arts, the largest middle and secondary school discipline. Holt also publishes in science, mathematics, social studies, and world languages. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich acquired the educational arm of Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
Saunders Saunders is a surname of English and Scottish patronymic origin derived from Sander, a mediaeval form of Alexander.See also: Sander (name) People * Ab Saunders (1851–1883), American cowboy and gunman * Al Saunders (born 1947), American footb ...
, and the Dryden Press in 1985 from
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
, and it retained the Holt, Rinehart and Winston name. CBS also sold in 1985 the other arm of the company, the retail publishing arm, to the
Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group Holtzbrinck Publishing Group () is a privately held German company based in Stuttgart which Holding company, owns publishing companies worldwide. Through Macmillan Publishers, it is one of the Publishing#Book publishing, Big Five English-langu ...
based in
Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...
, and it operated as a subsidiary publishing under its original name,
Henry Holt and Company Henry Holt and Company is an American book-publishing company based in New York City. One of the oldest publishers in the United States, it was founded in 1866 by Henry Holt and Frederick Leypoldt. Currently, the company publishes in the fields ...
. Harcourt Achieve, Professional and Trade – publishers of supplemental and alternative core educational materials for pre-Kindergarten to Grade 12 schools materials for adult education, school libraries and teacher professional development; and adult and children's trade books. Includes Harcourt Achieve, Greenwood/Heinemann, Global Library, Classroom Connect, Rigby, Steck-Vaughn, Harcourt Religion Publishers and Harcourt Trade Publishers.
Harcourt Assessment Harcourt Assessment was a company that published and distributed educational and psychological assessment tools and therapy resources and provided educational assessment and data management services for national, state, district and local assessme ...
- develops tests and resources for educational, psychological, speech, and occupational therapy assessment, as well as human resource selection and hiring ( talent assessment). Tests include WISC, WAIS,
WPPSI The Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI) is an intelligence test designed for children ages 2 years 6 months to 7 years 7 months developed by David Wechsler in 1967. It is a descendant of the earlier Wechsler Adult Intellige ...
,
Raven's Progressive Matrices Raven's Progressive Matrices (often referred to simply as Raven's Matrices) or RPM is a non-verbal test typically used to measure general human intelligence and abstract reasoning and is regarded as a non-verbal estimate of fluid intelligence. I ...
and Versant. Harcourt Education International – publisher for the UK primary, secondary and vocational (further education) markets as well as English-medium schools worldwide. Also covers the Australasian primary, secondary and further education sectors. Its imprints include
Heinemann Heinemann may refer to: * Heinemann (surname) * Heinemann (publisher), a publishing company * Heinemann Park, a.k.a. Pelican Stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States See also * Heineman * Jamie Hyneman James Franklin Hyneman (born Se ...
, Rigby, Ginn, Payne-Gallway and Raintree. HBJ Publications– business magazine and school supplies supplier that grew from sixteen magazines in the 1970s to more than one hundred by 1987. Executives from Harcourt bought the division in 1987 for $334 million.


Notes


References


Citations


Sources

* Company History. Harcourt Assessment (website). 2006. Retrieved 2007-02-21. * History of Harcourt Trade Publishers. Harcourt Trade Publishers (website). 2004. Retrieved 2006-12-04. * Harcourt Achieve. ''The New York Times'' Job Market (website). Retrieved 2006-12-04. {{Authority control Companies based in San Diego Elsevier imprints Mass media in San Diego Publishing companies established in 1919 2007 mergers and acquisitions Houghton Mifflin Harcourt