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| Parent company | Penguin Random House Canada |
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| Founded | 1906 |
| Founder | John McClelland and Frederick Goodchild |
| Country of origin | Canada |
| Headquarters location | Toronto, Ontario |
| Publication types | Books |
| Imprints | Douglas Gibson, Emblem, Tundra, New Canadian Library |
| Official website | www |
McClelland & Stewart Limited is a Canadian publishing company. It is owned by Penguin Random House of Canada, a branch of Penguin Random House, the international book publishing division of German media giant Bertelsmann.
It was founded in 1906 as McClelland and Goodchild by John McClelland and Frederick Goodchild, both originally employed with the "Methodist Book Room" which was in 1919 to become the Ryerson Press. In December 1913 George Stewart, who had also worked at the Methodist Book Room, joined the company, and the name of the firm was changed to McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart Limited. When Goodchild left to form his own company in 1918, the company's name was changed to McClelland and Stewart Limited, now sometimes shortened to M&S.
The first known imprint of the press is John D. Rockefeller's Random Reminiscences of Men and Events. [1] In the earliest years, M&S concentrated primarily on exclusive distribution and printing agreements with foreign-owned publishing houses. But the company did feature home-grown authors alongside their foreign offerings - the second catalogue issued by the company was titled Canadiana: A list of Books on Canada and Canadian Questions, Books by Canadian Writers. [2]
In 1910 Kilmeny of the Orchard by L. M. Montgomery was issued by the press, the first by a Canadian author. [3] The company slowly expanded its list of Canadian authors to include writers such as Bliss Carman, Duncan Campbell Scott and Stephen Leacock. When McClelland's son, Jack joined the company in 1946, the company started moving away from the distribution of books published outside the country. With the establishment of a Canadian subsidiary of Doubleday and Co., a firm which McClelland and Stewart had previously held Canadian distribution deals with, Jack started the move to a more Canadian-based catalogue: "I decided that I didn't want to be dependent on foreign agencies. I saw that a logical decision in London or New York could cut our volume in half. A Canadian nationalist was born overnight." [4] By 1962, most of the company's activities were associated with Canadian publishing. This included writers Margaret Atwood, Pierre Berton, Leonard Cohen, Peter Gzowski, Donald Jack, Margaret Laurence, Farley Mowat, Michael Ondaatje and Mordecai Richler.
Jack McClelland acted as the head of the company since the early 1950s, though he was officially in the position of general manager. John McClelland acted as chairman of the board of directors until his death in 1968.
Quality paperbacks were produced in Canada with their New Canadian Library series, launched with four titles. They were aimed at a college or university market, for course texts. The term "quality" was intended to suggest a divide between the mass market paperback and this higher production valued, often scholastic, publication. These paperbacks were the same size as mass market paperbacks, but had more sober covers, sometimes better quality binding, and were produced in smaller print runs. This was at a time when Canadian literary identity was beginning to be valued on a large scale level in Canada (it was after the war, and influenced by that as well). The 1950s had seen rare inclusions of Canadian content in English literature classes, and in the 1960s and 1970s, Canadian literature was being included more frequently in Canadian education. The New Canadian Library was said to have been an important factor in the establishment of the Canadian Literary identity. Macmillan of Canada was a major competitor of the New Canadian Library.
In 1986, M&S hired editor and publisher Douglas Gibson from Macmillan, [5] giving him his own Douglas Gibson Books imprint. [6] Many of the authors Gibson had worked with at Macmillan — including Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant, Robertson Davies, Jack Hodgins, Guy Vanderhaeghe, Hugh Maclennan and W.O. Mitchell — followed him to the new imprint. [5] The first book published under the Douglas Gibson Books imprint was Munro's The Progress of Love . Gibson became the publisher of McClelland and Stewart in 1988, and the company's president in 2000. [7]
At times, the company's financial future has been uncertain. In 1971, the Ontario Development Corporation made a $961,645 loan to stave off imminent collapse due to an unsustainable burden of debt. [8] In 1986, the company was purchased from McClelland by Avie Bennett. In 2000, Random House of Canada bought a 25% share in the company. The other 75% was donated to the University of Toronto. In 2011, Random House bought the remaining 75% of the company to become sole owner. [9]
Canada Post has issued a single commemorative stamp celebrating McClelland & Stewart's centennial. The stamp, designed by James Roberts of Overdrive (Design Limited), was issued nationwide on April 26, 2006, with the first day of issue ceremonies at the University of Toronto.
In 2011, University of Toronto sold its shares of McClelland & Stewart to Random House for $1. [10] In 2013, Random House's parent company, Bertelsmann, entered into a joint venture with Pearson PLC (the parent company of the Penguin Group) to form a new trade publishing company called Penguin Random House. [11] As part of this venture Random House of Canada and Penguin Canada were amalgamated as Penguin Random House Canada.
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. Random House has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann.
Alice Ann Munro is a Canadian short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. Munro's work has been described as revolutionizing the architecture of short stories, especially in its tendency to move forward and backward in time. Her stories have been said to "embed more than announce, reveal more than parade."
Marian Ruth Engel was a Canadian novelist and a founding member of the Writers' Union of Canada. Her most famous and controversial novel was Bear (1976), a tale of erotic love between an archivist and a bear.
John Gordon "Jack" McClelland CC was a Canadian publisher. He was known for promoting Canadian writers as president of the McClelland and Stewart publishing house.
Simon & Schuster Inc. is an American publishing company owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924, by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. Along with Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins and Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster is considered one of the 'Big Five' English language publishers. As of 2017 Simon & Schuster was the third largest publisher in the United States, publishing 2,000 titles annually under 35 different imprints.
The Progress of Love is a book of short stories by Alice Munro, published by McClelland and Stewart in 1986. It won the 1986 Governor General's Award for English Fiction, her third win of that award.
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.
James Crerar Reaney, was a Canadian poet, playwright, librettist, and professor, "whose works transform small-town Ontario life into the realm of dream and symbol." Reaney won Canada's highest literary award, the Governor General's Award, three times and received the Governor General's Awards for Poetry or Drama for both his poetry and his drama.
John Robert Colombo, CM is a Canadian writer, editor, and poet. He has published over 200 titles, including major anthologies and reference works.
Macmillan of Canada was a Canadian publishing house.
Doubleday Canada is an imprint of the publishing company Penguin Random House Canada. The company used to be known as Forboys. It was incorporated in 1936, and since 1945 it has been known as Doubleday Canada Limited. In 1986 parent company Doubleday was acquired by Bertelsmann. Due to Canadian policy at the time, majority control of Doubleday Canada was sold to Anna Porter. Porter sold her shares to Winnipeg businessman Abraham Simkin in 1991. Random House of Canada, which has just been acquired by Bertelsmann, acquired Doubleday Canada in 1999. In 2013, Random House of Canada and Penguin Canada merged to form Penguin Random House Canada.
Douglas Maitland Gibson,C.M. is a Canadian editor, publisher and writer. Best known as the former president and publisher of McClelland and Stewart, he was particularly noted for his professional relationships with many of Canada's most prominent and famous writers.
Bourinot's Rules of Order is a Canadian parliamentary authority originally published in 1894 by Sir John George Bourinot, Clerk of the House of Commons of Canada under the title A Canadian Manual on the Procedure at Meetings of Shareholders and Directors of Companies, Conventions, Societies, and Public Assemblies generally. The title page states that it is an abridgement of the author's larger work, but it should be seen as a shorter re-write, dealing in considerable depth with public meetings outside and separate from the Parliament in Ottawa. The fourth, posthumous, edition of the work was given the cover title of the present article. The document is widely used in Canada to set procedures for formal meetings in government, companies and other organizations.
Random House of Canada was the Canadian distributor for Random House, Inc. from 1944 until 2013. On July 1, 2013, it amalgamated with Penguin Canada to become Penguin Random House Canada.
The National Business Book Award is an award presented to Canadian business authors. The award, presented every year since 1985, is sponsored by Bennett Jones, The Globe and Mail, and The Walrus, DeGroote, and supported by CPA Canada and with prize management by Freedman & Associates.
Penguin Random House LLC is an Anglo-American multinational conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, with the merger of Penguin Group and Random House. Penguin Books was originally founded in 1935 and Random House was founded in 1927. Along with Simon & Schuster, Hachette, HarperCollins and Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Random House is considered one of the 'Big Five' English language publishers.
Clarke, Irwin & Company was a Canadian publishing house based in Toronto, Ontario. Established in 1930, it was purchased by Thomas Nelson Publishing in 2002. The company published works by prominent Canadian authors, artists, and poets, including Robertson Davies, Emily Carr, A.Y. Jackson, Adele Wiseman, Timothy Findley, and Alden Nowlan. The company was also known as a producer of educational works and textbooks.
Bear is a novel by Canadian author Marian Engel, published in 1976. It won the Governor General's Literary Award the same year. It is Engel's fifth novel, and her most famous. The story tells of a lonely archivist sent to work in northern Ontario, where she enters into a sexual relationship with a bear. The book has been called "the most controversial novel ever written in Canada".
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