This article needs additional citations for verification .(September 2010) |
Parent company | Perfect Film and Chemical (1968–1970) Fawcett Publications (1970–1977) CBS (1977–1982) Warner Books (1982–1996) Time Warner Book Group (1996–2006) Hachette Book Group USA (2006–) |
---|---|
Status | Dormant |
Founded | 1942 |
Founder | Leo Margulies Ned Pines |
Fiction genres | Mystery |
Imprints | Questar |
Popular Library is a New York paperback book company established in 1942 by Leo Margulies and Ned Pines, who at the time were major pulp magazine and newspaper publishers. [1] The company's logo of a pine tree was a tribute to Pines, and another Popular Library signature visual was a reduced black-and-white copy of the front cover on the title page.
A native of Malden, Massachusetts, Pines became the president of Pines Publications in 1928 and continued to lead the company until 1961. He was the president of Popular Library from 1942 to 1966 and its chairman from 1966 to 1968. Retiring in 1971, he continued to work as a consultant.
Popular Library was founded in 1942 as a detective-story reprint paperback book company. Popular expanded to publish most genres. [2] In February 1962, the company announced it was issuing a public offering of 127,500 common shares at $8 a share, through Sutro Bros. & Company. Ned Pines was retaining 318,000 shares representing 68.3 percent of the 466,000 shares outstanding. [3] Perfect Film and Chemical Corporation purchased Popular Library in 1968. [4] The company, which also had the Curtis Books imprint,[ citation needed ] was sold in 1970 to Fawcett Publications. [5] Popular won the Carey Thomas Award in 1976 for distinguished fiction in mass-market publishing under editorial director Patrick O'Connor. [2] In 1977, CBS Publications purchased Popular Library and Fawcett Books. CBS then renewed the copyright of the Standard/Better/Nedor/Popular 1950s pulps library and the various Captain Marvel titles. [5]
In 1982, CBS Publications sold off Popular Library to Warner Communications. [5] In April 1985, Warner Books relaunched Popular Library starting out with five other books plus the reprint of Question of Upbringing continuing each month with the follow volumes from A Dance to the Music of Time series by Anthony Powell. In addition, two books would be issued per month from Popular's new imprint, Questar, for science fiction. [2]
Although Popular Library embraced all genres, it was notable for publishing a wide variety of mystery authors. [2] The line-up of Popular Library novelists included Mary Roberts Rinehart, John Dickson Carr, Anthony Powell, P. D. James, Harper Lee, Helen Van Slyke, Margaret Atwood, Margaret Drabble, Jean Rhys, Ann Beattie, Taylor Caldwell, Anne Tyler, [2] Craig Rice, Cornell Woolrich, [1] Sam Cherry, Octavus Roy Cohen, Mignon G. Eberhart, Ernest Haycox, Rufus King, Arthur Miller and John Steinbeck.[ citation needed ] Popular Library’s first 100 covers were all by the same artists, H. Lawrence Hoffman [1] and Sol Immerman. The cover art became more eye-catching and vivid with the addition of illustrators Rudolph Belarski, Earle K. Bergey and Rafael DeSoto. [1] John Erskine's The Private Life of Helen of Troy is an early Popular Library title with conspicuous cover art and blurb ("Her lust caused the Trojan War") which made it eagerly sought by collectors.
A paperback book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with glue rather than stitches or staples. In contrast, hardback (hardcover) books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, leather, paper, or plastic.
A British comic is a periodical published in the United Kingdom that contains comic strips. It is generally referred to as a comic or a comic magazine, and historically as a comic paper. As of 2014, the three longest-running comics of all time were all British.
The Spider is an American pulp-magazine hero of the 1930s and 1940s. The character was created by publisher Harry Steeger and written by a variety of authors for 118 monthly issues of The Spider from 1933 to 1943. The Spider sold well during the 1930s, and copies are valued by modern pulp magazine collectors. Pulp magazine historian Ed Hulse has stated "Today, hero-pulp fans value The Spider more than any single-character magazine except for The Shadow and Doc Savage."
Titan Publishing Group is the publishing division of the British entertainment company Titan Entertainment, which was established as Titan Books in 1981. The books division has two main areas of publishing: film and television tie-ins and cinema reference books; and graphic novels and comics references and art titles. Its imprints are Titan Books, Titan Comics, Titan Magazines and Titan Manga.
Fawcett Publications was an American publishing company founded in 1919 in Robbinsdale, Minnesota by Wilford Hamilton "Captain Billy" Fawcett (1885–1940).
National Comics Publications v. Fawcett Publications, 191 F.2d 594. was a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in a twelve-year legal battle between National Comics and the Fawcett Comics division of Fawcett Publications, concerning Fawcett's Captain Marvel character being an infringement on the copyright of National's Superman comic book character. The litigation is notable as one of the longest-running legal battles in comic book publication history.
Martin Goodman was an American publisher of pulp magazines, digest sized magazines, paperback books, men's adventure magazines, and comic books, who founded the comics magazine company Timely Comics in 1939. Timely Comics would go on to become Marvel Comics, one of the United States' two largest comic book publishers along with rival DC Comics.
L. Miller & Son, Ltd. was a British publisher of magazines, comic books, pulp fiction and paperback books intended primarily to take advantage of the British ban on importing printed matter. Between 1943 and 1966, the firm published British editions of many American comic books, primarily those of Fawcett Comics and American paperback books, primarily those of Fawcett Publications' Gold Medal Books. The company is best known for the 1954 creation of Marvelman – a blatant imitation of the Golden Age Captain Marvel – after America's Fawcett Publications capitulated to National Periodicals. L. Miller & Son also published a large line of Western comics — many reprints but also some original titles - and both category fiction and non-fiction paperbacks.
Thrilling Publications, also known as Beacon Magazines (1936–37), Better Publications (1937–43) and Standard Magazines (1943–55), was a pulp magazine publisher run by Ned Pines, publishing such titles as Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories.
Jove Books, formerly known as Pyramid Books, is an American paperback and eBook publishing imprint, founded as an independent paperback house in 1949 by Almat Magazine Publishers. The company was sold to the Walter Reade Organization in the late 1960s. It was acquired in 1974 by Harcourt Brace which renamed it to Jove in 1977 and continued the line as an imprint. In 1979, they sold it to The Putnam Berkley Group, which is now part of the Penguin Group.
Hachette Book Group (HBG) is a publishing company owned by Hachette Livre, the largest publishing company in France, and the third largest trade and educational publisher in the world. Hachette Livre is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lagardère Group. HBG was formed when Hachette Livre purchased the Time Warner Book Group from Time Warner on March 31, 2006. Its headquarters are located at 1290 Avenue of the Americas, Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Hachette is considered one of the "big five" publishing companies, along with Holtzbrinck/Macmillan, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster. In one year, HBG publishes approximately 1400+ adult books, 300 books for young readers, and 450 audiobook titles. In 2017, the company had 167 books on the New York Times bestseller list, 34 of which reached No. 1.
Dell Publishing Company, Inc. is an American publisher of books, magazines and comic books, that was founded in 1921 by George T. Delacorte Jr. with $10,000, two employees and one magazine title, I Confess, and soon began turning out dozens of pulp magazines, which included penny-a-word detective stories, articles about films, and romance books.
Noah Lewis "Ned" Pines was an American publisher of pulp magazines, comic books, and paperback books, active from at least 1928 to 1971. His Standard Comics imprint was the parent company of the comic-book lines Nedor Publishing and Better Publications, the most prominent character of which was the superhero the Black Terror. Pines also established the paperback book publisher Popular Library, which eventually merged with Fawcett Publications.
Lancer Books was a publisher of paperback books founded by Irwin Stein and Walter Zacharius that operated from 1961 through 1973. While it published stories of a number of genres, it was noted most for its science fiction and fantasy, particularly its series of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian tales, the first publication of many in paperback format. It published the controversial novel Candy by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg, and Ted Mark's ribald series The Man from O.R.G.Y. Lancer paperbacks had a distinctive appearance, many bearing mauve or green page edging.
Standard Comics was a comic book imprint of American publisher Ned Pines, who also published pulp magazines and paperback books. Standard in turn was the parent company of two comic-book lines: Better Publications and Nedor Publishing. Collectors and historians sometimes refer to them collectively as "Standard/Better/Nedor".
The Gilberton Company, Inc. was an American publisher best known for the comic book series Classics Illustrated featuring adaptations of literary classics. Beginning life as an imprint of the Elliot Publishing Company, the company became independent in 1942, Between 1941 and 1962, domestic sales of Gilberton's publications totaled 200 million. Gilberton was sold to the Frawley Corporation in 1967. The company ceased publishing in 1971.
Better Comics may refer to:
Horwitz Publications is an Australian publisher primarily known for its publication of popular and pulp fiction. Established in 1920 in Sydney, Australia by Israel and Ruth Horwitz, the company was a family-owned and -run business until the early 21st century. The company is most associated with their son Stanley Horwitz, who took over publishing operations in 1956. Stanley was eventually succeeded by his son Peter and daughter Susan, who was the company's director in the years 1987-2016.
Thorpe & Porter was a British publisher, importer, and distributor of magazines and comic books. At first, the company was known for repackaging American comics and pulp magazines for the UK market. Later on, it became a publisher of original material. The company released more than 160 comics titles in the UK, the most prominent being Classics Illustrated, MAD UK, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes, Larry Harmon's Laurel & Hardy, House of Hammer, and Forbidden Worlds. T & P's most prominent imprints were Top Sellers Ltd. and Brown Watson. Thorpe & Porter operated from 1946 to c. 1979.