Short answers, pulled from the story.
Recorded Books was founded in 1978 by Henry Trentman in Charlotte Hall, Maryland. Trentman was a salesman who believed there was a market for high-quality, unabridged audiobooks on cassette tape aimed at commuters.
The first recording Recorded Books produced was The Sea-Wolf by Jack London, completed in 1979. It was narrated by Frank Muller, a local actor from Washington DC's Arena Stage.
Recorded Books operated as a mail-order rental business. Customers called an 800 number, provided a credit card, and rented a cassette book for thirty days; it arrived in a cardboard box containing a row of cassettes.
In April 2017, Recorded Books reorganized under the parent name RBMedia and became one of its imprints alongside HighBridge Audio, Tantor Media, ChristianAudio, Gildan Media, W.F. Howes in the UK, and Wavesound in Australia.
After acquiring Tantor Media in January 2015, Recorded Books held a catalog of more than 22,000 titles. Later in 2015, following the acquisition by Shamrock Advisors, the company reported a catalog of 25,000 titles and 3,000 new books published annually.
HighBridge Audio was best known for public-radio-related titles and Oprah's Book Club selections. Its catalog included The Time Traveler's Wife, Water for Elephants, Life of Pi, and Across the Nightingale Floor. HighBridge was originally founded by Minnesota Public Radio to distribute recordings of Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion.