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| Parent company | Penguin Group |
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| Founded | 1838 |
| Founder |
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| Country of origin | United States |
| Headquarters location | New York City, U.S. |
| Publication types | Books |
| Imprints | Amy Einhorn, Marian Wood, Coward-McCann |
| Official website | penguin |
G. P. Putnam's Sons is an American book publisher based in New York City, New York. Since 1996, it has been an imprint of the Penguin Group. [1]
The company began as Wiley & Putnam with the 1838 partnership between George Palmer Putnam and John Wiley, whose father had founded his own company in 1807.[ citation needed ]
In 1841, Putnam went to London where he set up a branch office in Covent Garden, the first American company ever to do so. [2] He returned to New York in 1848, dissolved the partnership with John Wiley, and established G. Putnam Broadway with a view to publishing a variety of works, including quality illustrated books. Wiley began John Wiley (later John Wiley and Sons), which is still an independent publisher to the present day.
In 1853, G. P. Putnam & Co. started Putnam's Magazine with Charles Frederick Briggs as its editor.
On George Palmer Putnam's death in 1872, the business was inherited by his sons George, John and Irving, and the firm's name was changed to G. P. Putnam's Sons. [3] The eldest son, George H. Putnam, became president of the firm and held the position for over fifty years.
In 1874, the company established its own book printing and manufacturing office, set up by John Putnam and operating initially out of newly leased premises at 182 Fifth Avenue. [4] This printing side of the business later became a separate division called the Knickerbocker Press, and was relocated in 1889 to the Knickerbocker Press Building, built specifically for the press in New Rochelle, New York. [5]
When George H. Putnam died in 1930, the various Putnam heirs voted to merge the firm with Minton, Balch & Co., who became the majority stockholders. George Palmer Putnam's grandson George P. Putnam (1887–1950) left the firm at that time, and Melville Minton, the partner and sales manager of Minton Balch & Co., became the acting president and majority stockholder of the firm until his death in 1956. In 1936, Putnam acquired the publisher Coward-McCann (later Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, after John Geoghegan its long-time chairman) [6] and ran it as an imprint into the 1980s. Upon Melville Minton's death, his son Walter J. Minton took control of the company.
In 1965, G. P. Putnam's Sons acquired Berkley Books, a mass market paperback publishing house.
MCA bought Putnam Publishing Group and Berkley Publishing Group in 1975. [7] Phyllis E. Grann, who was running Pocket Books for Simon & Schuster, was brought on board in 1976 as editor-in-chief. [8] In an attempt to boost Putnam's profits, Grann worked with MCA executive Stanley Newman on a financial model that emphasized publishing key authors annually and took Putnam from $10 million in revenue to over $100 million by 1983. [8] While keeping the list at 75 titles a year, Putnam focused on winners like Tom Clancy whose book Red Storm Rising sold almost one million copies in 1986. [8] Along with other publishers in the 1980s, Putnam moved to a heavy discount hardcover model to keep up with demand and sales through bookstore chains and price clubs. [8] Grann was promoted to CEO of Putnam in 1987, notably the first woman to become CEO of a major publishing house. [8] By 1993, the publisher was making $200 million in revenue. [8]
In 1982, Putnam acquired the respected children's book publisher, Grosset & Dunlap from Filmways. [1] The same year, Putnam acquired the book publishing division of Playboy Enterprises, which included Seaview Books. [9] [10]
The ownership of Putnam changed a number of times in the 1990s. MCA was bought by Matsushita Electric in 1990. [11] Then the Seagram Company acquired 80% of MCA from Matsushita, and shortly afterwards Seagram changed the name of the company to Universal Studios, Inc. [12] [13] The new owners had no interest in publishing, but Grann stepped in and was able to broker the deal for Putnam to be merged with Penguin Group (a division of British publishing conglomerate Pearson PLC) in 1996. [8] Putnam and the Penguin Group formed Penguin Putnam Inc. Grann abruptly left the company in 2001, after speculation over tensions with Pearson's CEO Marjorie Scardino. [8]
In 2013, Penguin merged with Bertelsmann's Random House, forming Penguin Random House. [1]
Universal Studios, Inc. is an American media and entertainment conglomerate owned by NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast.
Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the following decades, a series of acquisitions made it into one of the largest publishers in the United States. In 2013, it was merged with Penguin Group to form Penguin Random House, which is owned by the Germany-based media conglomerate Bertelsmann. Penguin Random House uses its brand for Random House Publishing Group and Random House Children's Books, as well as several imprints.
The Seagram Company Ltd. was a Canadian multinational conglomerate formerly headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. Originally a distiller of Canadian whisky based in Waterloo, Ontario, it was in the 1990s the largest owner of alcoholic beverage lines in the world.
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.
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., commonly known as Wiley, is an American multinational publishing company that focuses on academic publishing and instructional materials. The company was founded in 1807 and produces books, journals, and encyclopedias, in print and electronically, as well as online products and services, training materials, and educational materials for undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education students.
Hutchinson Heinemann is a British publishing firm founded in 1887. It is currently an imprint which is ultimately owned by Bertelsmann, the German publishing conglomerate.
George Palmer Putnam was an American publisher and author. He founded the firm G. P. Putnam's Sons and Putnam's Magazine. He was an advocate of international copyright reform, secretary for many years of the Publishers' Association, and founding superintendent of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Chatto & Windus is an imprint of Penguin Random House that was formerly an independent book publishing company founded in London in 1855 by John Camden Hotten. Following Hotten's death, the firm would reorganize under the names of his business partner Andrew Chatto and poet William Edward Windus. The company was purchased by Random House in 1987 and is now a sub-imprint of Vintage Books within the Penguin UK division.
Penguin Group is a British trade book publisher and part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. The new company was created by a merger that was finalised on 1 July 2013, with Bertelsmann initially owning 53% of the joint venture, and Pearson PLC initially owning the remaining 47%. Since 18 December 2019, Penguin Random House has been wholly owned by Bertelsmann.
Berkley Books is now an imprint of the Penguin Group.
Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books.
Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) is a global music publishing company and is part of the Universal Music Group. Universal Music Publishing has been ranked the #1 music publisher in market share by Billboard for multiple consecutive quarters.
E. P. Dutton was an American book publishing company. It was founded as a book retailer in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1852 by Edward Payson Dutton. Since 1986, it has been an imprint of Penguin Group.
Grosset & Dunlap is a New York City-based publishing house founded in 1898.
Frederick Woodruff "Ted" Field is an American media mogul, record executive, entrepreneur and film producer.
George Bell & Sons was an English book publishing house. It was based in London and existed from 1839 to 1986.
Jonathan Leavitt was a bookbinder who later co-founded the New York City publishing firm of Leavitt & Trow, one of the nation's first publishing houses. Leavitt was also co-founder of another early New York publishing house with his brother-in-law Daniel Appleton. George Palmer Putnam, who went on to found a New York publishing dynasty, received his first job from Leavitt. Eventually Jonathan Leavitt went into business on his own, and after his death the firm was run by his son George Ayres Leavitt.
Cemp Investments was the primary holding company and investment vehicle for, and named after, the four children of Samuel Bronfman: Charles Bronfman, Edgar Bronfman, Aileen "Minda" Bronfman de Gunzburg, and Phyllis Lambert, also known as the Montreal branch of the Bronfman family. Cemp became one of the largest privately owned companies in Canada. At its peak, it controlled tens of billions in dollars of assets in major distilling, commercial real estate development, oil and gas, and entertainment companies across North America.
Phyllis E. Grann is a former book editor and publishing executive. She was the first female CEO of a major publishing firm, Penguin Putnam, and one of the most commercially successful publishers in recent history. She was a long-time editor for Knopf Doubleday, and a former CEO of the Putnam Berkley Group and was also CEO of Penguin Putnam. Grann was responsible for publishing many notable and bestselling authors at Penguin including A. Scott Berg, Judy Blume, Tom Clancy, Patricia Cornwell, Sue Grafton, Daniel Silva, and Kurt Vonnegut. At Doubleday Grann acquired and edited Jeffrey Toobin, Tina Brown, Bob Herbert, Ayelet Waldman and Tim Weiner. At Knopf she edited John Darnton.
MCA Inc. (originally an initialism for Music Corporation of America) was an American media conglomerate founded in 1924. Originally a talent agency with artists in the music business as clients, the company became a major force in the film industry, and later expanded into television production. MCA published music, booked acts, ran the MCA Records music label, represented film, television and radio stars, and eventually produced and sold television programs to the three major television networks, especially NBC.
Media related to G. P. Putnam's Sons at Wikimedia Commons| Bertelsmann Home Entertainment |
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