Curated playlist
Book publishing companies based in New York (state)
- Vintage BooksVintage Books began life in 1954 as an idea inside Alfred A. Knopf, one of American publishing's most prestigious houses. Knopf wanted a trade paperback line that could carry serious literature into more hands, at a price point that didn't…
- St. Martin's PressSt. Martin's Press puts out roughly 700 books a year from its offices in the Equitable Building in Manhattan. That volume alone places it among the largest English-language publishers on earth. But the numbers only hint at the stranger…
- Simon & SchusterSimon & Schuster began with a crossword puzzle and a question no one had thought to answer. In 1924, Richard Simon's aunt, an avid puzzle enthusiast, asked him whether there was a book collecting the crossword puzzles from the New York…
- Oxford University PressOxford University Press is the largest university press in the world, and only Cambridge University Press, founded in 1534, is older. That distinction rests on centuries of printing rights, empire-wide branch offices, and repeated fights…
- New York University PressChancellor Elmer Ellsworth Brown established New York University Press in 1916. The press began operations that same year under his direct supervision. Initial efforts focused on building a catalog of academic texts for the university…
- Random HouseRandom House began with a casual remark that became a company name. In 1927, Bennett Cerf told his new partner Donald Klopfer that they were simply going to publish a few books on the side at random. That throwaway phrase stuck, and the…
- Bantam BooksBantam Books began in 1945 as an unlikely coalition of publishing ambitions. Walter B. Pitkin Jr., Sidney B. Kramer, and Ian and Betty Ballantine pooled their energy, backed by funding from Grosset & Dunlap and Curtis Publishing Company,…
- HarperCollinsHarperCollins traces its name to two companies that never met until one man decided to buy them both. James Harper and his brother John founded J & J Harper in New York in 1817. Two years later, in 1819, a Presbyterian schoolmaster named…
- Columbia University PressColumbia University Press has been shaping how the world reads, studies, and questions things since May 1893. It was born in New York City, tied to Columbia University, at a moment when American institutions were beginning to understand…
- Free Press (publisher)Jeremiah Kaplan and Charles Liebman named their new publishing house Free Press in 1947 for a reason. They wanted to print books devoted to civil liberties, and the name stated that plainly. Setting up headquarters in Glencoe, Illinois,…
- Viking PressHarold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheimer established Viking Press in New York City on the 1st of March 1925. They chose a name that evoked enterprise, adventure, and exploration for their new publishing house. Rockwell Kent drew the…
- Harper (publisher)Harper is one of the oldest continuously operating publishing houses in the United States, tracing its roots to a print shop opened in New York City in 1817. Two brothers with ink on their hands and ambition in their plans set something in…
- Alfred A. KnopfAlfred A. Knopf, Inc. was built on five thousand dollars borrowed from a father, and it became one of the most decorated publishing houses in American history. The year was 1915. Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and his wife Blanche launched their firm…
- Cornell University PressCornell University Press has the distinction of being the first university publishing enterprise established in the United States, founded in 1869. That claim alone is remarkable. But what makes the story stranger is what came after:…
- Ace BooksAaron A. Wyn hired editor Donald A. Wollheim in 1952 after a mistaken phone call from his wife Rose. The first book released that year was Keith Vining's Too Hot for Hell paired with Samuel W. Taylor's The Grinning Gismo. These two titles…
- New American LibraryNew American Library began its life not as an American company at all, but as Penguin U.S.A., a transatlantic outpost of the British publisher Penguin Books. What separated it from that parent, and what set it on its own course, was a…
- Henry Holt and CompanyHenry Holt and Company opened its doors in 1866. Two men named Henry Holt and Frederick Leypoldt started the business together. They built one of the oldest publishing houses in the United States. The firm began operations in New York City…
- Three Rivers PressThree Rivers Press takes its name from geography: the Harlem, East, and Hudson rivers that border Manhattan. Behind that name sits one of New York publishing's quieter but durable institutions, a trade paperback imprint that has been…
- DAW BooksDAW Books arrived in 1972 with a single paperback in hand: Spell of the Witch World, a short story collection by Andre Norton. It was the first title from a brand-new publisher, and it announced something that had never quite existed…
- Pantheon BooksPantheon Books began its life in 1942 in New York City, founded by two refugees who had crossed an ocean to escape fascism and the Holocaust. Kurt and Helen Wolff brought with them a vision: introduce progressive European thought to…
- Syracuse University PressAugust 1943 marked the birth of Syracuse University Press. President William P. Tolley made a promise to Thomas J. Watson that day. The university agreed to organize a press for printing IBM's Precision Measurements in the Metal Workings…
- PublicAffairsPublicAffairs Books launched in New York City in 1997 with a clear conviction: that serious non-fiction about politics and current affairs deserved a dedicated home. Its founder, Peter Osnos, built the press around books that the…
- Fordham University PressFordham University Press has been putting ideas into print since 1907, making it the oldest Catholic university press in the United States and the seventh-oldest university press in the country. For well over a century, this New York…
- Prometheus BooksPrometheus Books was founded in August 1969 by philosopher Paul Kurtz, and its name tells you everything about what it intended to do. Prometheus is the Titan from Greek mythology who stole fire from Zeus and handed it to humanity. That…
- Ballantine BooksBallantine Books opened for business in 1952 with a claim its founder, Ian Ballantine, put in blunt commercial terms. He promised to "offer trade publishers a plan for simultaneous publishing of original titles in two editions, a hardcover…
- Dover PublicationsHayward and Blanche Cirker opened their book business in 1941 from an apartment building called The Dover in Forest Hills South, Queens. They began by selling remaindered textbooks through the mail to a small group of customers. Their…
- Charles Scribner's SonsCharles Scribner's Sons has spent nearly two centuries at the center of American literature, publishing names that now appear on high school syllabi and library shelves alike: Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edith Wharton, Thomas…
- Farrar, Straus and GirouxFarrar, Straus and Giroux has published authors who won the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Award. The company started in 1945, when John C. Farrar and Roger W. Straus Jr. set out to publish literary books. The first…
- Berghahn BooksBerghahn Books began in 1994 when Marion Berghahn founded a press dedicated to the corners of scholarship that larger publishers often overlooked. Headquartered in both New York and Oxford, it set its sights on the humanities and social…
- Cambria PressCambria Press opened its doors in Amherst, New York, sending its first titles into the world in September 2006. From the start, it operated as an independent academic publisher, a status that set it apart from the large commercial houses…
- Manning PublicationsManning Publications began in 1990 not as a technology company, but as a book packaging business. Marjan Bace and Lee Fitzpatrick were the two business partners who launched it, and their initial ambitions stretched across all of…
- Scholastic CorporationScholastic Corporation began as a four-page magazine handed out to students in 50 high schools near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The date was the 22nd of October, 1920. A century later, on that exact same date in 2020, the company would…
- Hippocrene BooksHippocrene Books sits at 171 Madison Avenue in New York City, a small independent press with an outsized mission: to publish the languages and literatures that the rest of American publishing tends to ignore. Its name comes from the…