Crowell

About Crowell

Crowell (Thomas Y. Crowell Company) was a New York publisher that issued its first books in 1876 under Thomas Young Crowell, known for Roget's International Thesaurus and a strong children's list, and absorbed into Harper & Row at the end of the 1970s.

The firm grew out of a Boston bindery founded by Benjamin Bradley in 1834. Crowell, born in West Dennis, Massachusetts, in 1836, joined it in a junior post in 1856, ran it after Bradley's death and bought out Bradley's widow in 1870. In the mid-1870s he bought the plates and stock of the publisher Warren & Wyman, and the firm began publishing in 1876. His son T. Irving Crowell joined in 1882 and later led the company, followed by his grandson Robert L. Crowell.

Crowell's list ran from reference works and gift poetry (Crowell's Poets in larger formats and the pocket Handy Volume Classics from 1892) to trade books. Children's titles included Cheaper by the Dozen (1948), Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy-Tacy books, Rifles for Watie, winner of the 1958 Newbery Medal, and Katherine Paterson's The Great Gilly Hopkins (1978), which won the 1979 National Book Award for children's books.

Dun & Bradstreet bought Crowell in 1968, keeping it as a separate division, and in 1974 Crowell took over Intext, with the John Day Company, Abelard-Schuman and Criterion Books. Harper & Row then acquired the group (sources give 1978 or 1979), briefly combined it with Lippincott as Lippincott & Crowell, and merged both into Harper & Row in 1980.

How to identify Crowell first editions