Harper & Brothers was founded in March 1817 in New York by brothers James and John Harper, trained printers, under the firm name J. & J. Harper. Their first commission was printing 2,000 copies of Seneca's Morals for bookseller Evert Duyckinck, followed by their first proprietary publication in 1818, Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Their younger brothers Joseph Wesley and Fletcher joined the business in 1823 and 1825 respectively, leading to the firm's renaming as Harper & Brothers on October 29, 1833. The four brothers divided responsibilities: James supervised the pressroom, John managed business and production, Wesley served as chief editor and critic, and Fletcher acted as general executive officer. The company adopted stereotyping technology early and became New York's largest publisher by volume as early as 1825. In 1844, James Harper was elected Mayor of New York City. On December 10, 1853, a devastating fire destroyed the premises at 331 Pearl Street, but the firm recovered and rebuilt on Franklin Square.
From 1850, Harper & Brothers developed significant periodical publishing with Harper's New Monthly Magazine (1850, later Harper's Magazine), Harper's Weekly (1857-1916), Harper's Bazar (1867, sold to William Randolph Hearst in 1913, later Harper's Bazaar), and Harper's Young People (1879). The firm published the greatest Anglo-American authors of the 19th century, including Herman Melville, Mark Twain, the Brontë sisters, William Thackeray, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Henry James. A financial crisis occurred in 1899, requiring intervention by financier J. Pierpont Morgan. George B. M. Harvey became president in November 1899 and restored the house's reputation, though it lost several important authors including Joseph Conrad, Theodore Dreiser, and Sinclair Lewis in the 1910s. In 1900, the firm passed out of family control.
In 1962, Harper & Brothers merged with Row, Peterson & Company to form Harper & Row. During the 1970s, the company acquired Thomas Y. Crowell Co. and J. B. Lippincott & Co., merged into Harper & Row in 1980. In 1988, Harper & Row purchased religious publisher Zondervan. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation acquired Harper & Row in 1987, then William Collins, Sons (Scottish publishing house founded in Glasgow in 1819 by William Collins) in 1990. The two entities were merged that year to create HarperCollins, combining Harper's torch icon and Collins' fountain icon. Since 2007, the trade name "Harper" has been preferred to HarperCollins. The company is now one of the "Big Five" English-language publishers and has subsidiaries in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, India, and China.
Evolution of corporate name:
J. & J. Harper (1817-1833)
Harper & Brothers (October 29, 1833-1962)
Harper & Row (1962-1990)
HarperCollins (1990-present)
Founders:
James Harper (April 13, 1795, Newton, N.Y. – March 27, 1869, New York)
John Harper (January 22, 1797, Newton, N.Y. – April 22, 1875, New York)
Joined by Joseph Wesley Harper (December 25, 1801 – February 14, 1870) in 1823
Joined by Fletcher Harper (January 31, 1806 – May 29, 1877) in 1825
