HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language book publishing companies; the other four include Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. HarperCollins is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Corp.
The company's name is derived from a combination of the firm's predecessors. Harper & Brothers, founded in 1817, merged with Row, Peterson & Company in 1962 to form Harper & Row, which was acquired by NewsCorp in 1987. The Scottish publishing company William Collins, Sons, founded in 1819, was acquired by NewsCorp in 1989 and merged with Harper & Row to form HarperCollins. The logo for the firm combines the fire from Harper's torch and the water from Collins' fountain.
HarperCollins has publishing groups in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, India, and China. The company publishes different imprints, including former independent publishing houses and new imprints. The company's worldwide CEO is Brian Murray.
Harper (publisher) and William Collins, Sons
The earliest of the publishing firms that comprise HarperCollins was founded in 1817 by James Harper and his brother John, initially operating under the name J & J Harper. They were later joined by two other brothers, Joseph Wesley and Fletcher Harper, with the firm becoming Harper & Brothers in 1833.
Harper & Brothers originated several notable magazine publications in the nineteenth century that would later be sold or discontinued, including Harper's Magazine, Harper's Weekly, Harper's Bazaar, and Harper's Young People.
In 1962, Harper & Brothers merged with Row, Peterson & Company to become Harper & Row. The firm acquired Thomas Y. Crowell Co. and J. B. Lippincott & Co. in the 1970s, with Crowell and the trade operations of Lippincott merged into Harper & Row in 1980. In 1988, Harper & Row purchased the religious publisher Zondervan, including subsidiary Marshall Pickering.
William Collins, Sons was established in Glasgow in 1819 by Presbyterian schoolmaster William Collins.