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43-624: Doubleday is an American publishing company. It was founded as the Doubleday & McClure Company in 1897. By 1947, it was the largest book publisher in the United States. It published the work of mostly U.S. authors under a number of imprints and distributed them through its own stores. In 2009, Doubleday merged with Knopf Publishing Group to form the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group , which, as of 2018,

86-667: A $ 5,000 advance from his father, Samuel Knopf. The first office was located in New York's Candler Building . The publishing house was officially incorporated in 1918, with Alfred Knopf as president, Blanche Knopf as vice president, and Samuel Knopf as treasurer. From the start, Knopf focused on European translations and high-brow works of literature. Among their initial publications were French author Émile Augier 's Four Plays , Russian writer Nikolai Gogol 's Taras Bulba , Polish novelist Stanisław Przybyszewski 's novel Homo Sapiens , and French writer Guy de Maupassant 's Yvette,

129-414: A Novelette, and Ten Other Stories . During World War I these books were cheap to obtain and helped establish Knopf as an American firm publishing European works. Their first bestseller was a new edition of Green Mansions , a novel by W. H. Hudson which went through nine printings by 1919 and sold over 20,000 copies. Their first original American novel, The Three Black Pennys by Joseph Hergesheimer ,

172-555: A career that included working with John Updike and Anne Tyler . Pat Knopf left his parents' publishing company in 1959 to launch his own, Atheneum Publishers , with two other partners. The story made the front page of The New York Times . In a 1957 advertisement in The Atlantic Monthly , Alfred A. Knopf published the Borzoi Credo. The credo includes a list of what Knopf's beliefs for publishing including

215-482: A major expansion and diversification. He ranged from editing the poetry of Theodore Roethke to publishing bestsellers by Stephen King and others; in the 1970s, he recruited Jackie Kennedy Onassis as an editor. In 1963 he became president and CEO of the Doubleday and Company publishing house. In the summer of 1972 his former wife Neltje Doubleday Kings led a shareholder effort to take the company public, but it

258-564: A separate group. In 1996, Doubleday founded the Christian publisher WaterBrook Press. WaterBrook acquired Harold Shaw Publishers in 2000 and Multnomah Publishers in 2006. In late 2008 and early 2009, Doubleday imprint merged with Knopf Publishing Group to form the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. In October 2008, Doubleday laid off about 10% of its staff (16 people) across all departments. That December,

301-467: A struggling publishing venture into the empire that Doubleday was to become". At the same time, Doubleday helped Dixon launch his writing career. Page and Dixon were both from North Carolina and had known each other in Raleigh, North Carolina . In 1910, Doubleday, Page & Co. moved its operations, which included a train station, to Garden City, New York , on Long Island . The company purchased much of

344-499: A textbook subsidiary and the Dell Publishing Company, which included Dell paperbacks. It was operating more than a dozen book clubs, including the mammoth Literary Guild ; more than two dozen Doubleday bookshops across the country; and four book printing and binding companies. Sargent also led the company's expansion into "radio and television broadcasting and film production." In 1978 Sargent became chairman of

387-541: Is a Russian wolfhound or Borzoi . Blanche Knopf suggested the Borzoi for the logo to imply motion and the logo was used on both the spine and the title page of their books. John Turner Sargent Sr. John Turner Sargent was born probably on Long Island, New York and was raised in Cedarhurst . He was the son of Charles S. Sargent and his wife. His paternal grandfather was botanist Charles Sprague Sargent ,

430-518: Is a sister imprint of Random House. In October 2012, Bertelsmann entered into talks with rival conglomerate Pearson plc , over the possibility of combining their respective publishing companies, Random House and Penguin Group . The merger was completed on 1 July 2013 and the new company is Penguin Random House . Bertelsmann owned 53% of the joint venture while Pearson owned 47%. At the time of

473-541: Is part of Penguin Random House . The firm was founded as Doubleday & McClure Company in 1897 by Frank Nelson Doubleday in partnership with Samuel Sidney McClure . McClure had founded the first U.S. newspaper syndicate in 1884 ( McClure Syndicate ) and the monthly McClure's Magazine in 1893. One of their first bestsellers was The Day's Work by Rudyard Kipling , a short story collection that Macmillan published in Britain late in 1898. Other authors published by

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516-721: The George H. Doran Company , creating Doubleday, Doran , then the largest publishing business in the English-speaking world. Doubleday Canada Limited launches in the thirties. In 1944, Doubleday, Doran acquired the Philadelphia medical publisher Blakiston. In 1946, the company became Doubleday and Company . Nelson Doubleday resigned as president, but continued as chairman of the board until his death on January 11, 1949. Douglas Black took over as president from 1946 to 1963. His tenure attracted numerous public figures to

559-549: The Good Neighbor policy , Blanche Knopf visited South America in 1942, so the firm could start producing texts from there. She was one of the first publishers to visit Europe after World War II. Her trips, and those of other editors, brought in new writers from Europe, South America, and Asia. Alfred traveled to Brazil in 1961, which spurred a corresponding interest on his part in South America. Penn Publishing Company

602-656: The John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize literary prize was established in his honor at the Center for Fiction at the New York Mercantile Library . The award has been increased to $ 10,000; with $ 1,000 each for finalists on the shortlist. As of 2012, it is funded by Nancy Dunnan, a board member at the Center and non-fiction author. She has named it also for her father Ray Flaherty, a journalist with

645-769: The Broadway, Doubleday Business, Doubleday Religion, and WaterBrook Multnomah divisions were moved to Crown Publishing Group , a subsidiary of Random House in Manhattan . The following are imprints that exist or have existed under Doubleday: Alfred A. Knopf Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. ( / k n ɒ p f / ) is an American publishing house that was founded by Blanche Knopf and Alfred A. Knopf Sr. in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers in addition to leading American literary trends. It

688-594: The Knopfs suggested publishing a collection of her short stories, Youth and the Bright Medusa , in 1920. Cather was pleased with the results and the advertisement of the book in The New Republic and would go on to publish sixteen books with Knopf, including their first Pulitzer Prize winner, One of Ours . Before they had married, Alfred had promised Blanche that they would be equal partners in

731-545: The Mets to Wilpon for $ 135 million after a feud over the monetary value of the team. In 1988, portions of the firm became part of the Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, which in turn became a division of Random House in 1998. Doubleday was combined in a group with Broadway Books , Anchor Books was combined with Vintage Books as a division of Knopf , while Bantam and Dell became

774-620: The Type", which describes the history of the typeface used for the book. In addition, Knopf books date the year of the book's current printing on the title page. Knopf published textbooks until 1988, when Random House's schools and colleges division was sold to McGraw Hill . In 1991, Knopf revived the " Everyman's Library " series, originally published in England in the early 20th century. This series consists of classics of world literature in affordable hardcover editions. The series has grown over

817-2182: The acquisition the combined companies controlled 25% of the book business, with more than 10,000 employees and 250 independent publishing imprints and with about $ 3.9 billion in annual revenues. The move to consolidate was to provide leverage against Amazon.com and battle the shrinking state of bookstores . In 2015, Knopf celebrated its 100th anniversary by publishing a commemorative book, Alfred A. Knopf, 1915–2015: A Century of Publishing. While there have been many notable editors at Knopf there have only been four editors-in-chief: Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. , Robert Gottlieb , Sonny Mehta (who died in 2019) and Jordan Pavlin. Other influential editors at Knopf included Harold Strauss (Japanese literature), Herbert Weinstock (biography of musical composers), Judith Jones (translations, The Diary of Anne Frank, culinary texts), Peter Mendelsund (art director and book cover designer) as well as Bobbie Bristol, Angus Cameron , Ann Close, Charles Elliott, Gary Fisketjon , Lee Goerner, Ashbel Green , Carol Brown Janeway , Michael Magzis, Anne McCormick, Nancy Nicholas, Daniel Okrent , Regina Ryan, Sophie Wilkins, and Victoria Wilson . Knopf also employed literary scouts to good advantage. Alfred A. Knopf has published books by many notable authors, including John Banville , Carl Bernstein , Elizabeth Bowen , Frederick Buechner , Albert Camus , Robert Caro , Willa Cather , John Cheever , Julia Child , Bill Clinton , Michael Crichton , Miguel Covarrubias , Don DeLillo , Joan Didion , Bret Easton Ellis , James Ellroy , Martin Gardner , Kahlil Gibran , Lee H. Hamilton , Kazuo Ishiguro , John Keegan , Nella Larsen , John le Carré , Jack London , Gabriel García Márquez , Cormac McCarthy , Toni Morrison , Alice Munro , Haruki Murakami , Cynthia Ozick , Christopher Paolini , Edgar Allan Poe , Ezra Pound , Anne Rice , Dorothy Richardson , Stephen M. Silverman , Oswald Spengler , Susan Swan , Donna Tartt , Barbara W. Tuchman , Anne Tyler , John Updike , Andrew Vachss , James D. Watson , and Elinor Wylie . The logo for Knopf

860-475: The annual Wyoming Governor's Art Awards. Sargent remarried on December 21, 1985, to Elizabeth Nichols Kelly, the fiction and books editor of Cosmopolitan magazine. She brought her two children to the marriage. After the war, Sargent started working at Doubleday as a copywriter. He soon advanced to higher positions and had been there for years before his marriage to Neltje. He made his career in book publishing at Doubleday and Company , which he led through

903-646: The board. By 1986, the firm was a fully integrated international communications company, doing trade publishing, mass-market paperback publishing, book clubs, and book manufacturing, together with ventures in broadcasting and advertising. The company had offices in London and Paris and wholly owned subsidiaries in Canada , Australia, and New Zealand, with joint ventures in the UK and the Netherlands. Nelson Doubleday Jr. sold

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946-699: The company bought the New York Mets baseball team. The Mets defeated the Boston Red Sox to win the World Series in 1986 in a seven-game contest. In 1981, Doubleday promoted James R. McLaughlin to the presidency of Dell Publishing. Sales slowed in the early 1980s and earnings fell precipitously. Doubleday Jr., brought James McLaughlin over (from subsidiary Dell) to help streamline and downsize. McLaughlin went on to succeed Doubleday Jr., as president and CEO, with Doubleday Jr., becoming chairman of

989-496: The company in 1934, and worked with the firm for more than fifty years, rising to take the positions of president and chairman of the board. Blanche became president in 1957 when Alfred became chairman of the board, and worked steadily for the firm until her death in 1966. Alfred Knopf retired in 1972, becoming chairman emeritus of the firm until his death in 1984. Alfred Knopf also had a summer home in Purchase, New York . Following

1032-494: The company in its early years include W. Somerset Maugham and Joseph Conrad . Theodore Roosevelt Jr. later served as a vice-president of the company. The partnership ended in 1900. McClure and John Sanborn Phillips , the co-founder of his magazine, formed McClure, Phillips and Company. Doubleday and Walter Hines Page formed Doubleday, Page & Company . The bestselling novels of Thomas Dixon Jr. , including The Leopard's Spots , 1902 and The Clansman , 1905, "changed

1075-410: The company, serving until 1985. Working in partnership with Nelson Doubleday Jr. , Sargent supported purchase of the New York Mets . When Doubleday was sold to Bertelsmann during the Mets championship season of 1986 , he became chairman of the executive committee at Doubleday. Sargent was active in supporting literary and cultural institutions in the city. Deeply involved in its social life, he

1118-577: The first director of the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University . His father became successful in finance as a partner in Hornblower & Weeks , a securities concern in New York. The young Sargent attended the private St. Mark's School and a year at Harvard College before enlisting in the Navy during World War II. In May 1953 Sargent married Neltje Doubleday , who was 18. She was

1161-429: The granddaughter of the late Frank N. Doubleday , who founded the Doubleday publishing company in 1897. The couple had a daughter Ellen and son John Turner Sargent Jr. After they divorced in 1965, Neltje Doubleday Sargent moved with their children to Wyoming . She remarried, bought a ranch, restored and operated the historic Sheridan Inn , and established herself as an abstract painter. In 2005 she received one of

1204-487: The imprint Anchor Books; founding mail-order subscription book clubs in its book club division; opening 30 new retail stores in 25 cities; and opening new editorial offices in San Francisco, London, and Paris. By 1947, Doubleday was the largest publisher in the United States, with annual sales of more than 30 million books. In 1954, Doubleday sold Blakiston to McGraw-Hill . Doubleday's son-in-law John Sargent

1247-491: The land on the east side of Franklin Avenue, and estate homes were built for many of its executives on Fourth Street. Co-founder and Garden City resident Walter Hines Page was named Ambassador to Great Britain in 1916. In 1922, the company founded its juvenile department, the second in the nation, with May Massee as head. The founder's son Nelson Doubleday joined the firm in the same year. In 1927, Doubleday, Page merged with

1290-520: The next year and keep doubling becoming one of the firm's most successful books. In 1965 the book sold 240,000 copies. Approaching its 100 year anniversary in 2023, The Prophet has been translated into over 100 languages and has never gone out of print for Knopf. In the 1920s, Knopf sometimes withdrew or censored their books when threatened by John Sumner , such as Floyd Dell 's Janet March or George Egerton 's 1899 translation of Hunger . Samuel Knopf died in 1932. William A. Koshland joined

1333-418: The publishing company to Bertelsmann in 1986 for a reported $ 475 million, with James R. McLaughlin resigning on December 17, 1986. After the purchase, Bertelsmann sold Laidlaw to Macmillan Inc. The sale of Doubleday to Bertelsmann did not include the Mets, which Nelson Doubleday and minority owner Fred Wilpon had purchased from Doubleday & Company for $ 85 million. In 2002 , Doubleday sold his stake in

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1376-416: The publishing company, but it was clear by the company's fifth anniversary that this was not to be the case. Knopf published a celebratory fifth-anniversary book in which Alfred was the focus of anecdotes by authors and Blanche's name was only mentioned once to note that "Mrs. Knopf" had found a manuscript. This despite ample evidence from authors and others that Blanche was in fact the soul of the company. This

1419-404: The publishing company, including Dwight D. Eisenhower , Harry S. Truman , Douglas MacArthur , Robert Taft , and André Malraux . He was a strong opponent of censorship and felt that it was his responsibility to the American public to publish controversial titles. Black also expanded Doubleday's publishing program by opening two new printing plants; creating a new line of quality paperbacks, under

1462-763: The statement that he never published an unworthy book. Among a list of beliefs listed is the final one—"I believe that magazines, movies, television, and radio will never replace good books." In 1960, Random House acquired Alfred A. Knopf. It is believed that the decision to sell was prompted by Alfred A. Knopf Jr. , leaving Knopf to found his own book company, Atheneum Books , in 1959. Since its founding, Knopf has paid close attention to design and typography , employing notable designers and typographers including William Addison Dwiggins , Harry Ford, Steven Heller , Chip Kidd , Lorraine Louie , Peter Mendelsund , Bruce Rogers , Rudolf Ruzicka , and Beatrice Warde . Knopf books conclude with an unnumbered page titled "A Note on

1505-490: The streets of the financial and theatre districts dressed in artist costumes with sandwich boards . The placards had a copy of the book for browsing and directed interested buyers to local book shops. The unique look of their books along with their expertise in advertising their authors drew Willa Cather to leave her previous publisher Houghton Mifflin to join Alfred A. Knopf. As she was still under contract for her novels,

1548-591: The years to include lines of Children's Classics and Pocket Poets . Random House was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998. In late 2008 and early 2009, the Knopf Publishing Group merged with Doubleday to form the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Random House has been owned since its 2013 merger of Penguin Group by Penguin Random House , a joint venture between Bertelsmann (53%) and Pearson PLC (47%). Many of Knopf's hardcover books are published later as Vintage paperbacks . Vintage Books

1591-471: Was acquired by Random House in 1960, and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group division of Penguin Random House which is owned by the German conglomerate Bertelsmann . The Knopf publishing house is associated with the borzoi logo in its colophon , which was designed by co-founder Blanche Knopf in 1925. Knopf was founded in 1915 by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. along with Blanche Knopf , on

1634-477: Was acquired in 1943. The Knopfs' son, Alfred "Pat" Jr., was hired on as secretary and trade books manager after the war. In 1957, editor Judith Jones joined Knopf. Jones, who had discovered Anne Frank : Diary of a Young Girl while working at Doubleday, acquired Julia Child 's Mastering the Art of French Cooking for Knopf. Jones would remain with Knopf, retiring in 2011 as a senior editor and vice-president after

1677-530: Was covered extensively in The Lady with the Borzoi by Laura Claridge. In 1923, Knopf also started publishing periodicals, beginning with The American Mercury , founded by H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan , which it published through 1934. Also in 1923, Knopf published Kahlil Gibran 's The Prophet . Knopf had published Gibran's earlier works which had disappointing sales. In its first year, The Prophet only sold 1,159 copies. It would double sales

1720-422: Was defeated. Her mother and brother supported Sargent in keeping the company privately held. While Sargent served as president and CEO until 1978, he led the company through a major expansion, expanding its publishing and diversifying its businesses. As reported by Bruce Weber, By 1979, the year after he left the presidency and was made chairman, Doubleday was publishing 700 books annually. The company had bought

1763-704: Was described as a socialite and for years hosted a Christmas Eve party strictly for single people. Sargent was a trustee of the New York Public Library , the New York Zoological Society and the American Academy in Rome . He died in 2012, aged 87, after recent years of frail health following a stroke. He was survived by, among others, his wife Elizabeth, two children and grandchildren, and two stepchildren. In 2005,

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1806-544: Was president and CEO from 1963 to 1978. In 1964, Doubleday acquired the educational publisher Laidlaw. In 1967, the company purchased the Dallas -based Trigg-Vaughn group of radio and TV stations to create Doubleday Broadcasting. After expanding during the 1970s and 1980s, Doubleday sold the broadcasting division in 1986. Nelson Doubleday Jr. succeeded John Sargent as president and CEO from 1978 to 1985. In 1976, Doubleday bought paperback publisher Dell Publishing . In 1980,

1849-466: Was published in 1917. With the start of the 1920s Knopf began using innovative advertising techniques to draw attention to their books and authors. Beginning in 1920, Knopf produced a chapbook for the purpose of promoting new books. The Borzoi was published periodically over the years, the first being a hardback called The Borzoi and sometimes quarterly as The Borzoi Quarterly . For Floyd Dell's coming-of-age novel, Moon-Calf , they paid men to walk

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