Books in the United States

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As of 2018, several firms in the United States rank among the world's biggest publishers of books in terms of revenue: Cengage Learning, HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill Education, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, and Wiley. [1] [nb 1]

Contents

History

In 1640 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Stephen Daye produced the first book printed in British North America, the Bay Psalm Book . [4]

The American Library Association formed in 1876, and the Bibliographical Society of America in 1904. The national Center for the Book began in 1977.

Types

Bookselling

Popular books in the 19th century included Sheldon's In His Steps (1896). 20th century bestsellers included Mitchell's Gone with the Wind (1936), Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People (1937), Spock's Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1946), Harris' I'm OK – You're OK (1969), Woodward and Bernstein's All the President's Men (1974). Recent bestsellers have included Warren's Purpose-Driven Life (2002) and Brown's Da Vinci Code (2003). [5]

The influential "New York Times Best Seller list" first appeared in 1931. The online bookseller Amazon.com began business in July 1995, based in the state of Washington. [6] [7]

Fairs

Clubs

Collections

Some notable collections of books of the United States include:

Digitization

The nonprofit Internet Archive began scanning books in 2004, in the same year that Google Inc. launched Google Book Search. In 2005, Google began scanning pages of volumes in several large research libraries in the US, as part of its new Google Books Library Project. The Open Content Alliance formed in 2005.

Images

Bibliography

Published in 19th century

Published in 20th century

Published in 21st century

See also

Notes

  1. Of these, several also topped the list in 2016 and 2017. [2] [3]

Related Research Articles

<i>Encyclopedia Americana</i> Encyclopedia written in American English

Encyclopedia Americana is a general encyclopedia written in American English. It was the first major multivolume encyclopedia that was published in the United States. With Collier's Encyclopedia and Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopedia Americana became one of the three major English-language general encyclopedias; the three were sometimes collectively called "the ABCs". Following the acquisition of Grolier in 2000, the encyclopedia has been produced by Scholastic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Book collecting</span> Activity of collecting books

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grolier</span> Publisher of educational and reference books

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grolier Club</span> Bibliophilic club in Manhattan, New York

The Grolier Club is a private club and society of bibliophiles in New York City. Founded in January 1884, it is the oldest existing bibliophilic club in North America. The club is named after Jean Grolier de Servières, Viscount d'Aguisy, Treasurer General of France, whose library was famous; his motto, "Io. Grolierii et amicorum" [of or belonging to Jean Grolier and his friends], suggested his generosity in sharing books. The Club's stated objective is "the literary study of the arts pertaining to the production of books, including the occasional publication of books designed to illustrate, promote and encourage these arts; and the acquisition, furnishing and maintenance of a suitable club building for the safekeeping of its property, wherein meetings, lectures and exhibitions shall take place from time to time ..."

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The Hroswitha Club was a membership-based club of women bibliophiles and collectors based in New York City, active from 1944 to 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Sabin</span>

Joseph Sabin was a Braunston, England-born bibliographer and bookseller in Oxford, Philadelphia, and New York City. He compiled the "stupendous" multivolume Bibliotheca Americana: A Dictionary of Books Relating to America, considered a "bibliophilic monument;" and published the American Bibliopolist, a trade magazine. His sons Robert T. Sabin and William W. Sabin also worked in the bookselling business.

George Thomas Tanselle is an American textual critic, bibliographer, and book collector, especially known for his work on Herman Melville. He was Vice President of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation from 1978 to 2006.

The Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies (FABS) is an association of American book clubs whose members seek interaction with book collectors across the country and around the world. At The Rowfant (Book) Club's 100th anniversary celebration in 1992, local members and their guests from book clubs in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco discovered common interests in bibliophilic book clubs. The new association's first meeting was November 5, 1993, in New York, at The Grolier Club. In 1994, the group drew up articles of association outlining their goals to promote and develop common interests of the member societies.

As of 2018, five firms in France rank among the world's biggest publishers of books in terms of revenue: Éditions Lefebvre Sarrut, Groupe Albin Michel, Groupe Madrigall, Hachette Livre, and Martinière Groupe.

In 2018, two firms in Spain ranked among the world's biggest publishers of books in terms of revenue: Grupo Planeta and Grupo Santillana. In 2013, there were 524,213 titles in print in Spain, including 76,434 new titles.

Italy is the home of two of the world's biggest publishers of books in terms of revenue: Messaggerie Italiane and Mondadori Libri. Other large publishers include De Agostini Editore, Feltrinelli and the RCS MediaGroup.

As of 2018, ten firms in Germany rank among the world's biggest publishers of books in terms of revenue: C.H. Beck, Bertelsmann, Cornelsen Verlag, Haufe-Gruppe, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, Ernst Klett Verlag, Springer Nature, Thieme, WEKA Holding, and Westermann Druck- und Verlagsgruppe. Overall, "Germany has some 2,000 publishing houses, and more than 90,000 titles reach the public each year, a production surpassed only by the United States." Unlike many other countries, "book publishing is not centered in a single city but is concentrated fairly evenly in Berlin, Hamburg, and the regional metropolises of Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and Munich."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Books in the Netherlands</span>

As of 2018, Wolters Kluwer ranks as the Dutch biggest publisher of books in terms of revenue. Other notable Dutch houses include Brill and Elsevier.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Books in the United Kingdom</span>

Books in the United Kingdom refers to books in the United Kingdom. In other words, "written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers", in the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacob Blanck</span> American bibliographer (1906–1974)

Jacob Nathaniel Blanck was an American bibliographer, editor, and children's writer. Born in Boston, he attended local schools and briefly ran a bookshop before being hired to assist on a bibliography of American first editions. He wrote for periodicals on the book trade and worked as a bibliographer in libraries including the Library of Congress in the 1940s and 1950s. Blanck also published two children's books. In the early 1940s, he founded a bibliography project that became Bibliography of American Literature, a selective bibliography of American literature. It was completed by 1992, after Blanck's death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bibliography of early American publishers and printers</span>

Bibliography of early American publishers and printers is a selection of books, journals and other publications devoted to these topics covering their careers and other activities before, during and just after the American Revolution. Various works that are not primarily devoted to those topics, but whose content devotes itself to them in significant measure, are sometimes included here also. Works about Benjamin Franklin, a famous printer and publisher, among other things, are too numerous to list in this bibliography, can be found at Bibliography of Benjamin Franklin, and are generally not included here unless they are greatly devoted to Franklin's printing career. Single accounts of printers and publishers that occur in encyclopedia articles are neither included here.

References

  1. "The World's 54 Largest Publishers, 2018", Publishers Weekly , US, vol. 265, no. 38, 14 September 2018
  2. "World's 52 Largest Book Publishers, 2016", Publishers Weekly, US, 26 August 2016
  3. "World's 54 Largest Publishers, 2017", Publishers Weekly , US, 25 August 2017
  4. Boyer 2001.
  5. "Best Seller", Britannica.com , retrieved November 30, 2017
  6. "The Next Big Thing: A Bookstore?", Fortune.com , December 9, 1996
  7. "Amazon.com". Archived from the original on 1999-08-28. Retrieved 2018-11-09 via Wayback Machine.
  8. "Book Club of California" . Retrieved March 11, 2017.
  9. "The Caxton Club" . Retrieved March 11, 2017.
  10. "Florida Bibliophile Society" . Retrieved March 11, 2017.
  11. "The Grolier Club" . Retrieved March 11, 2017.
  12. "The Ticknor Society" . Retrieved March 11, 2017.