Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner's or Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing a number of American authors including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Stephen King, Robert A. Heinlein, Thomas Wolfe, George Santayana, John Clellon Holmes, and Edith Wharton.
The firm published Scribner's Magazine for many years. More recently, several Scribner titles and authors have garnered Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards and other merits. In 1978 the company merged with Atheneum and became The Scribner Book Companies. In turn it merged into Macmillan in 1984.
Simon & Schuster bought Macmillan in 1994. By this point only the trade book and reference book operations still bore the original family name. The former imprint, now simply "Scribner," was retained by Simon & Schuster, while the reference division has been owned by Gale since 1999.
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History
The firm was founded in 1846 by Charles Scribner I and Isaac D. Baker as "Baker & Scribner". After Baker's death, Scribner bought the remainder of the company and renamed it the "Charles Scribner Company." In 1865 the company made its first venture into magazine publishing with Hours at Home.
In 1870 the Scribners organized a new firm, Scribner and Company, to publish a magazine entitled Scribner’s Monthly. After the death of Charles Scribner I in 1871, his son John Blair Scribner took over as president of the company. His other sons Charles Scribner II and Arthur Hawley Scribner would also join the firm, in 1875 and 1884. They each later served as presidents. When the other partners in the venture sold their stake to the family, the company was renamed Charles Scribner's Sons.
The company launched St. Nicholas Magazine in 1873 with Mary Mapes Dodge as editor and Frank R. Stockton as assistant editor; it became well known as a children's magazine. When the Scribner family sold the magazine company to outside investors in 1881, Scribner’s Monthly was renamed the Century Magazine. The Scribners brothers were enjoined from publishing any magazine for a period of five years.
In 1886, at the expiration of this term, they launched Scribner's Magazine. The firm's headquarters were in the Scribner Building, built in 1893, on lower Fifth Avenue at 21st Street, and later in the Charles Scribner's Sons Building, on Fifth Avenue in midtown. Both buildings were designed by Ernest Flagg in a Beaux Arts style.
The children's book division was established in 1934 under the leadership of Alice Dalgliesh. It published works by distinguished authors and illustrators including N.C. Wyeth, Robert A. Heinlein, Marcia Brown, Will James, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Leo Politi.
As of 2011 the publisher is owned by the CBS Corporation.
Presidents
- Charles Scribner I (1821â€"1871), 1846 to 1871
- John Blair Scribner (1850â€"1879), 1871 to 1879
- Charles Scribner II (1854â€"1930), 1879 to ?
- Arthur Hawley Scribner (1859â€"1932), circa 1900
- Charles Scribner III (1890â€"1952), 1932 to 1952
- Charles Scribner IV (1921â€"1995), 1952 to 1984
Names
- Baker & Scribner, until the death of Baker in 1850
- Charles Scribner Company
- Charles Scribner's Sons
- Scribner
Bookstores
The Scribner Bookstores are now owned by Barnes & Noble.
References
External links
- The House of Scribner
- "Scribner Magazine online". 1889-1939. Retrieved 2012-04-24.Â
- Charles Scribner's Sons at Thomson Gale
- Archives of Charles Scribner’s Sons at the Princeton University Library, Manuscript Division
- Charles Scribner's Sons Art Reference Department records at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art
- Charles Scribner's Sons: An Illustrated Chronology Princeton Library