HarperCollins

Collins was a Scottish printing company founded by a Presbyterian schoolmaster, William Collins, in Glasgow in 1819, in partnership with Charles Chalmers, the younger brother of Thomas Chalmers, minister of Tron Church, Glasgow. The company had to overcome many early obstacles, and Charles Chamlers left the business in 1825. The company eventually found success in 1841 as a printer of Bibles, and in 1848 Collins's son Sir William Collins developed the firm as a publishing venture, specialising in religious and educational books. The company was renamed William Collins, Sons & Co. in 1868.

Related Topics:
Scottish - Presbyterian - William Collins - Glasgow - 1819 - Thomas Chalmers - Tron Church - 1841 - Bibles - 1848 - Sir William Collins - Religious - Education - Book - 1868

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Although the early emphasis of the company had been on religion and education, Collins also published more widely. In 1917, with Sir Godfrey Collins in charge, the firm started publishing fiction. William Collins, Sons & Co. published all but the first six of Agatha Christie's novels. Upon purchasing the rights to the works of C.S. Lewis, Fount was established as Collins's religion imprint.

Related Topics:
1917 - Sir Godfrey Collins - Agatha Christie - C.S. Lewis

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In 1989 Collins was taken over by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Joined together with the US publisher Harper & Row, they now trade under the name HarperCollins.

Related Topics:
1989 - Rupert Murdoch - News Corporation - Harper & Row - HarperCollins

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Collins is still used as an imprint, chiefly for wildlife and natural history books (including the on-going New Naturalist series) and field guides, as well as English and bilingual dictionaries based on the Bank of English, a large corpus of contemporary English texts.

Related Topics:
Imprint - Wildlife - Natural history - New Naturalist series - Field guide - Bank of English - Corpus

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It web site home page describes it as "Home of William Morrow, Avon, Perennial, Rayo, Amistad, Caedmon Audio, Regan Books".

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The worldwide CEO of HarperCollins is Jane Friedman.

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