Melville House Publishing is an American independent

publisher 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 ...

of literary fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. The company was founded in 2001 and is run by the husband-and-wife team of Dennis Loy Johnson and Valerie Merians in

Hoboken, New Jersey Hoboken ( ; Unami: ') is a city in Hudson County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 60,417. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 58,690 i ...

. The company is named after the author

Herman Melville Herman Melville ( born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are ''Moby-Dick'' (1851); ''Typee'' (1846), a rom ...

. It has a reputation as an "activist press" and publisher of left-leaning books.

History

The company was founded by husband-and-wife team of Dennis Johnson and Valerie Merians. Johnson wrote a blog called "MobyLives" and after the

9/11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerci ...

collected poetry related to the event and published it as a book to great success, which launched the company. They intended Melville to be a low volume boutique that specializes in poetry and "highly literary" novels issuing less than six a year. The company has a reputation as a "activist press" and became known for works of "political reportage with a leftist streak". Johnson once said they formed the company with the notion of "getting Bush out of office" in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. In 2007, they were named by the

Association of American Publishers The Association of American Publishers (AAP) is the national trade association of the American book publishing industry. AAP lobbies for book, journal, and education publishers in the United States. AAP members include most of the major commercia ...

as the winner of the 2007 Miriam Bass Award for Creativity in Independent Publishing."RATTLING THE CAGE AT THE AAP ANNUAL CONFERENCE FOR THE LARGE AND LESS THAN LARGE"
''ForeWord (magazine)'', March 14, 2007. Accessed October 24, 2007. "One of the most moving moments of the week came when Dennis Loy Johnson and Valerie Merians, co-publishers of Hoboken, NJ based Melville House received the Miriam Bass Award for Creativity in Independent Publishing at the opening of the conference." ''The Little Girl and The Cigarette'' published by Melville was part of the

AIGA The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) is a professional organization for design. Its members practice all forms of communication design, including graphic design, typography, interaction design, user experience, branding and identity ...

(American Institute of Graphic Arts) "50 books/50 Covers" cover design award for 2007. In 2008 Melville House moved to

Dumbo, Brooklyn Dumbo (or DUMBO, short for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The area known as Dumbo used to be known as Gairville. It encompasses two sections: one located between the Manhatta ...

, to a location that includes a bookstore with their offices. The opening was on January 19, 2008. In 2013, Melville House started a sister company in the United Kingdom, Melville House UK. Melville House publishes books in several series. These include the Art of the Novella Series, which ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'' called an "ongoing celebration of the form", and which includes classics by

Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists. He is best kno ...

, Anton Chekhov,

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 ...

. The Neversink Library, "a collection of lost, forgotten, and 'foolishly ignored' books from around the world". The Last Interview series, which collects interviews with prominent writers, including the last interviews given before their deaths, has included

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...

, Philip K. Dick and

Nora Ephron Nora Ephron ( ; May 19, 1941 – June 26, 2012) was an American journalist, writer, and filmmaker. She is best known for her romantic comedy films and was nominated three times for the Writers Guild of America Award and the Academy Award for ...

. In 2014, it published the

Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture The Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program is a report compiled by the bipartisan United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)'s Detent ...

in just 19 days; and later that year, an edition of the

Pope Francis Pope Francis ( la, Franciscus; it, Francesco; es, link=, Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 17 December 1936) is the head of the Catholic Church. He has been the bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State since 13 March 2013. ...

' ''

Laudato si' ''Laudato si (''Praise Be to You'') is the second encyclical of Pope Francis. The encyclical has the subtitle "on care for our common home". In it, the pope critiques consumerism and irresponsible development, laments environmental degradatio ...

'', an encyclical on climate change, soon after the Pope released it. The speed of publications has been called "extraordinary" for the industry. In 2016, Melville House published '' The Making of Donald Trump'' by

David Cay Johnston David Cay Boyle Johnston (born December 24, 1948) is an American investigative journalist and author, a specialist in economics and tax issues, and winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting. From July 2011 until September 2012 he was a ...

. Melville used a process they call "crashing the book" to work around the clock and bring the book out in 27 days.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Publishing companies established in 2001 Book publishing companies based in New York City Companies based in Brooklyn