Short answers, pulled from the story.
New American Library was founded in 1948, when Victor Weybright and Kurt Enoch purchased Penguin Books' American assets and renamed the company the New American Library of World Literature. The Penguin and Pelican trademarks were excluded from the sale and remained with the British parent.
New American Library was founded by Victor Weybright and Kurt Enoch, who bought Penguin Books' American assets in 1948. Enoch, formerly head of Albatross Books, served as president of NAL from 1947 to 1965.
By 1965, NAL's Mentor and Signet books were selling over 50 million volumes annually. At the time of the company's 1983 sale, New American Library had over 1 billion paperback books in print.
New American Library published under several imprints including Signet Books, Signet Classic, Mentor Books, Plume, Meridian, and Meridian. Mentor Books operated with the slogan "Good reading for the millions" and focused on nonfiction, while Signet Key targeted young readers ages 10 to 14.
New American Library is currently an imprint of Penguin Random House, which was formed in 2013 when Pearson PLC merged Penguin with Bertelsmann-owned Random House. Within Penguin Random House, NAL sits in the Penguin Publishing Group as a sister imprint to the Berkley Publishing Group, publishing only nonfiction titles since 2016.
Victor Weybright testified before a 1952 House Committee on pornography and endorsed industry self-regulation rather than government restrictions. He argued that NAL's serious Mentor list gave the company credibility to defend more provocative fiction by authors such as Faulkner, Farrell, and Caldwell against censors.