Doubleday (publisher) explained

The Doubleday Publishing Group is the fifth largest book publishing company in the world.

History

It was founded as Doubleday & McClure Company in 1897 by Frank Nelson Doubleday who had formed a partnership with magazine publisher Samuel McClure. One of their first bestsellers was The Day's Work by Rudyard Kipling. Other authors published by the company in its early years include W. Somerset Maugham and Joseph Conrad. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. was later a vice-president of the company.

In 1900 the company became Doubleday, Page & Company when Walter Hines Page joined as a new partner. In 1922, the founder's son, Nelson Doubleday, joined the firm.

In 1927, Doubleday merged with the George H. Doran Company, creating Doubleday, Doran, the largest publishing business in the English-speaking world. In 1946, the company became Doubleday and Company and John Sargent became president and CEO during that time, with his son as a business associate in the publishing division.^[1]

Doubleday was sold to Bertelsmann in 1986. In 1988 it became part of the Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, which in turn became a division of Random House in 1998.

Notable editors

• Dean Giles Mgregor
• Stewart 'Sandy' Richardson
• Jacqueline Kennedy

Imprints

The following are imprints that exist or have existed under Doubleday:

• Anchor Books, produced quality paperback for bookstores; named for the anchor that (along with a dolphin) forms Doubleday's logo; now part of the Knopf Publishing Group's Vintage Anchor unit
• Blakiston Co., medical and scientific books. Sold in 1947 to McGraw-Hill
• Blue Ribbon Books, purchased in 1939 from Reynal & Hitchcock
• The Crime Club, active through much of the 20th century, publishing mystery and detective novels, most notably the Fu Manchu series by Sax Rohmer and the Saint series by Leslie Charteris
• Garden City Publishing Co., originally established as a separate firm by Nelson Doubleday, Garden City's books were primarily reprints of books first offered by Doubleday, printed from the original plates but on less expensive paper. It was named for the village on New York's Long Island in which Doubleday was long headquartered (until 1986), and which still houses Bookspan, the direct marketer of general interest and specialty book clubs run by Doubleday Direct and Book-of-the-Month Club Holdings.
• Image books, Catholic Books -- still a Doubleday unit as part of Doubleday Religious Publishing
• Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, a literary imprint established in 1990. Talese, the imprint's publisher and editorial director, is a senior vice president of Doubleday.
• Permabooks, paperback division established in 1948
• Rimington & Hooper, high-quality limited editions
• Triangle Books, purchased in 1939 from Reynal & Hitchcock; sold inexpensive books through chain stores
• Zenith Books, aimed at African-American youths

Bookstores

• Doubleday Bookstores is now a part of Waldenbooks.

External links

• Doubleday official site
• Collection of Doubleday and Co. drafts, proofs, and other material re At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends, and The White House Years by Dwight D. Eisenhower, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library

Notes and References

1. [John Turner Sargent]