Garland Science

• 1. Introduction

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  Garland Science was an American publishing company that made its name with textbooks on the living cell. Under its earlier name, Garland Publishing, it once tackled a very different job. In 1984 it released Ulysses: A Critical and Synoptic Edition, the James Joyce novel, edited by Hans Walter Gabler. The aim was to repair almost 5,000 omissions, transpositions and other errors in the book's original 1922 text. A press willing to reopen one of the most famous novels in English would later be known for biology. How did that shift happen, which books carried the company's reputation, and what became of the firm once it was gone?

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• 2. A Humanities Beginning

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  Gavin Borden, who lived from 1939 to 1991, founded the firm as Garland Publishing in 1969. Its first list was narrow, focused on 18th-century literary criticism.

  By the late 1970s the company had settled into a different pattern. It was mainly producing academic reference books, along with facsimile and reprint editions for niche markets.

  Several series defined this period. The Garland Reference Library of the Humanities began in 1975, and the Garland Reference Library of Social Science followed in 1983. Garland Medieval Bibliographies started in 1989.

  One project from these years outlived the imprint. A ten-volume reference work on world music was first issued by Garland Publishing and is now published by Routledge.

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• 3. Turning to Science

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  In 1983 the firm began publishing scientific textbooks, one year before its Joyce edition appeared. That quiet addition would eventually overshadow the humanities shelves.

  The decisive change of ownership came in 1997, when Taylor & Francis acquired the company. Routledge, which now publishes the world music set, is another imprint within that same group. After the purchase, the firm operated as Garland Science Publishing, or simply Garland Science.

  As a Taylor & Francis subsidiary, it focused on textbooks across the life sciences. Its subjects included cell and molecular biology, immunology, protein chemistry, genetics and bioinformatics.

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• 4. The Textbook List

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  Molecular Biology of the Cell was the title that did the most for the company's standing. Its authors include Bruce Alberts and Peter Walter, and James D. Watson was an earlier author. It has been praised as "the most influential cell biology textbook of its time".

  The same list reached into cancer research. Robert Weinberg wrote The Biology of Cancer for the imprint.

  Immunology had its own anchor in Immunobiology, whose authors include Charles Janeway and Kenneth Murphy. Peter Parham contributed The Immune System to the same subject area.

  Students of the flagship cell textbook were served by companions. John Wilson and Tim Hunt wrote Molecular Biology of the Cell: The Problems Book, and Bruce Alberts and colleagues produced Essential Cell Biology.

  Physics-minded readers had options too. Ken A. Dill and Sarina Bromberg wrote Molecular Driving Forces, and Rob Phillips, Jane Kondev and Julie Theriot wrote Physical Biology of the Cell.

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• 5. The Imprint Closes

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  The Garland Science website has since been shut down, and the name is now defunct. The brand that spent decades publishing in the life sciences no longer operates as an active publisher.

  The major textbooks did not disappear with it. They were sold to W. W. Norton & Company, which now holds the titles that carried the Garland name.

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