Publisher · New York City

Anchor Books

Anchor Books is the trade paperback imprint Jason Epstein founded at Doubleday in New York in 1953, now part of Knopf Doubleday at Penguin Random House.

Editions tracked: 28
First editions: 16
Books: 28
Years: 1961 to 2022

Search all Anchor Books editions Wikidata

Anchor Books is a publisher based in New York City. We track 28 editions it published between 1961 and 2022, 16 of them first editions across 28 books. Each book lists its first edition and the points that identify it.

About Anchor Books

Anchor Books is an American paperback publisher founded at Doubleday in New York in 1953 by the editor Jason Epstein, and often described as the first of the so-called quality paperback lines.

Origins. Epstein, then working at Doubleday, launched Anchor with the backing of editor-in-chief Ken McCormick. His aim was to produce cheap but well-made paperbacks of important books that students, many of them studying on the G.I. Bill, could not afford in hardback. The format caught on quickly, and Anchor won the Carey-Thomas Award in 1954. Its publisher today describes it as the oldest trade paperback publisher in America, set up to make modern classics available to college students and general adult readers.

List. Anchor's list covers history, science, women's studies, sociology and literary fiction. Authors published under the imprint include Chinua Achebe, Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan, Jon Krakauer, Karen Armstrong, Anne Rice, Chuck Palahniuk, Alexander McCall Smith and Dan Brown.

Ownership. Anchor remained a Doubleday imprint and is now published by the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, which belongs to Penguin Random House.

We have not yet written the guide to Anchor Books's first-edition conventions. Until we do, check each book's own page: we list its points where we know them. Know how Anchor Books marked its firsts? Tell us.