- During the Harcourt, Brace & World years (1960 to 1970) the copyright page of a first printing reads "first edition", or "first American edition" for a book that first appeared abroad.
- Match the imprint to the date, because the Harcourt, Brace & World name covers only 1960 to 1970. Before that the firm was Harcourt, Brace & Company, which put no first-printing statement on its books from 1921 until about 1931. After 1970 it was Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, which used "First Edition" with a letter line such as ABCDE, shortened to BCDE from 1973 to 1983.
- From about 1931 Harcourt, Brace & Company frequently marked later printings simply by deleting the "First Edition" statement, so a copy from that period lacking the statement may well be a reprint.
Publisher · founded 1919 · New York City
Harcourt, Brace & World
Harcourt, Brace & World was the 1960 to 1970 name of the New York publisher Harcourt, founded in 1919, formed when it merged with World Book and later renamed Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
- Editions tracked
- 42
- First editions
- 27
- Books
- 42
- Years
- 1932 to 1970
Harcourt, Brace & World is a publisher based in New York City, founded in 1919. We track 42 editions it published between 1932 and 1970, 27 of them first editions across 42 books. How Harcourt, Brace & World marked its first editions is set out below, with a checker for the year on your title page.
About Harcourt, Brace & World
Harcourt, Brace & World was the name used from 1960 to 1970 by the New York publishing house founded in 1919 by Alfred Harcourt and Donald Brace, later known as Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and finally absorbed into Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Harcourt and Brace, who had met at Columbia, set up the firm in 1919 as Harcourt, Brace & Howe with the editor Will David Howe. Howe left in 1921 and the business became Harcourt, Brace & Company. In that form it published Sinclair Lewis, Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, James Thurber, George Orwell and Robert Penn Warren, among others.
In 1960 William Jovanovich took the company public and merged it with the World Book Company, an educational and testing publisher, creating Harcourt, Brace & World.
In 1970 it was renamed Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and diversified well beyond books, at one point owning SeaWorld. General Cinema bought it in 1991 (later Harcourt General, with the publishing arm renamed Harcourt, Inc.), Reed Elsevier acquired Harcourt in 2001, and in 2007 it agreed to sell the Harcourt US schools business to the Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep group, after which the Harcourt name was folded into Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The separate Harcourt name was phased out by 2008.
Note that books dated before 1960 belong to the earlier Harcourt, Brace & Company imprint, not to Harcourt, Brace & World.
Holding a copy? The first edition checker shows Harcourt, Brace & World's practice for the year on your title page.
Identification
How to identify Harcourt, Brace & World first editions
Authors
Books
Published by Harcourt, Brace & World
Frequently asked questions
How do I identify a Harcourt, Brace & World first edition?
- During the Harcourt, Brace & World years (1960 to 1970) the copyright page of a first printing reads "first edition", or "first American edition" for a book that first appeared abroad. - Match the imprint to the date, because the Harcourt, Brace & World name covers only 1960 to 1970. Before that the firm was Harcourt, Brace & Company, which put no first-printing statement on its books from 1921
How many Harcourt, Brace & World books does MyVolumes track?
We track 42 editions published by Harcourt, Brace & World, 27 of them first editions, across 42 books.
Where these facts come from
- Harcourt (publisher), Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
- Harcourt (Q5654997), Wikidata (wikidata.org)
- First Edition Identification by Publisher, ILAB (ilab.org)
- First Edition Identification by Publisher (G to S), Quill & Brush (qbbooks.com)
Every fact on this page was checked against the sources listed. Checked 18 October 2026. Reviewed by Harriet Ellis; read how we check facts.