Harper Collins: Looking northwest across Dey and Broadway at 195 Broadway on a sunny late morningCC0, via Wikimedia Commons · licence
Publisher · founded 1817 · New York City
Harper Collins
HarperCollins was formed by News Corp in 1989 from Harper & Row and William Collins. Its New York firsts state First Edition with a number row, while Collins before 1989 used no first-edition statement.
HarperCollins is a large English-language publisher owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, with offices in New York and London. News Corp created it in 1989 by merging two long-established houses it had bought: Harper & Row of New York and William Collins, Sons of Glasgow and London.
The Harper side goes back to 1817, when the brothers James and John Harper began printing in New York; the firm became Harper & Brothers and in 1962 merged with Row, Peterson & Company to form Harper & Row. Collins was started in Glasgow in 1819 by William Collins and later published Agatha Christie through its Crime Club. News Corp took a 40 per cent stake in Collins in 1981 and bought Harper & Row in 1987.
The group has since grown by buying other publishers. Unwin Hyman, acquired in 1990, brought the Tolkien list; William Morrow and Avon followed in 1999, Thomas Nelson in 2012, Harlequin in 2014 and the trade list of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2021. Its imprints include Fourth Estate in Britain and William Morrow and Avon in America, and its children's list includes the Warriors cat novels, published since 2003.
Holding a copy? The first edition checker shows Harper Collins's practice for the year on your title page.
Identification
How to identify Harper Collins first editions
What to look for
Before 1989
Harper (New York) put the words "First Edition" on the copyright page of its firsts and took them off for later printings, a practice the firm described in 1928 and again in 1947.
Before that statement came in, from 1912 Harper printed a two-letter code under the copyright notice giving the month and year the copy was printed.
UNVERIFIED: Harper & Row added a number row in 1969 but often forgot to remove "First Edition" from later printings, so the number row, not the statement, decides the printing.
Collins (Glasgow and London) used no special first-edition mark; its books carry the publication date and copyright notice on the back of the title page, and later printings are expected to be noted.
From 1989
HarperCollins in New York states "First Edition" and adds a number row covering both years and printings: a 1991 first impression reads "91 92 93 94 95" followed by a run from 10 down to 1.
A HarperCollins paperback marked "First Edition" or "First Thus" may be the first in that format only, not the first appearance of the text: dealers use "First Thus" for paperback reissues, and guides warn that the statement can refer to format.
UNVERIFIED: Book club copies and later jackets swapped onto earlier books are common, so look for a printed, unclipped jacket price.
UNVERIFIED: HarperCollins editions of Tolkien are not firsts: the Tolkien list joined the group only with Unwin Hyman in 1990.
UNVERIFIED: Agatha Christie's novels first came out from Collins under the Crime Club name before the merger, so a HarperCollins Christie is a reissue.
Before 1989 - Harper (New York) put the words "First Edition" on the copyright page of its firsts and took them off for later printings, a practice the firm described in 1928 and again in 1947. - Before that statement came in, from 1912 Harper printed a two-letter code under the copyright notice giving the month and year the copy was printed. - UNVERIFIED: Harper & Row added a number row in 1969 b
How many Harper Collins books does MyVolumes track?
We track 201 editions published by Harper Collins, 73 of them first editions, across 201 books.
