Prentice-Hall was an American textbook and trade publisher founded in 1913, owned by Pearson from 1998 and defunct by 2020. Its trade list, which ended in 1991, holds its collectable firsts.
Prentice-Hall was an American publisher, founded in 1913, best known for educational and professional textbooks, which also issued some notable trade titles and which was defunct as a brand by 2020.
The company was started on 13 October 1913 by Charles Gerstenberg, a law professor, and his student Richard Ettinger, who named it after their mothers' maiden names, Prentice and Hall. Its later headquarters were in New Jersey, latterly Hoboken.
Alongside its textbook list it published general books, including Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking (October 1952) and the anonymous Go Ask Alice (1971). Its technical list included Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie's The C Programming Language, Andrew S. Tanenbaum's Operating Systems: Design and Implementation and Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig's Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach.
Gulf+Western bought Prentice-Hall in 1984 and placed it within Simon & Schuster. Gulf+Western's successor, Paramount, passed to Viacom in 1994, and in 1998 Viacom sold Simon & Schuster's educational business, including Prentice Hall, to Pearson. Pearson sold its US schools publishing in 2019 (renamed Savvas Learning), and by May 2020 the imprint was defunct, with its lists passing to successors including Pearson, Savvas, Simon & Schuster and Wolters Kluwer.
Holding a copy? The first edition checker shows Prentice-Hall's practice for the year on your title page.
Identification
How to identify Prentice-Hall first editions
What to look for
What a collector should know first: most Prentice-Hall books are textbooks, whose numbered editions (second edition, third edition) are revisions rather than reprints and attract little collector interest. Collectors mainly want the trade titles of the 1950s to 1970s.
1940s to 1960s
The imprint place moved from New York (on 1950 and 1952 titles) to Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey (by 1959), which helps date an undated copy.
The first printing of The Power of Positive Thinking (1952) is bound in blue cloth.
UNVERIFIED: first printings of this period state "First Edition" on the copyright page (recorded for a 1950 title).
UNVERIFIED: later printings are listed on the copyright page, so a first printing shows no further printings (as recorded for the 1952 first printing of The Power of Positive Thinking).
UNVERIFIED: the first printing jacket of The Power of Positive Thinking is priced $2.95.
1970s to 1991
Number lines came into general use on American books from the 1970s; on such a line the lowest number shows the printing, so a line that includes 1 is a first printing.
UNVERIFIED: Prentice-Hall titles of the 1970s, including its Spectrum paperback line, carry a number line, and some Spectrum paperbacks were issued at the same time as the hardback.
Prentice-Hall's trade list ended in 1991, so trade first editions under this name stop there.
From 1991
Prentice Hall continued only as an educational and professional imprint, under Simon & Schuster and from 1998 under Pearson. Revised textbook editions are labelled as new editions and have little standing as collectable firsts.
What a collector should know first: most Prentice-Hall books are textbooks, whose numbered editions (second edition, third edition) are revisions rather than reprints and attract little collector interest. Collectors mainly want the trade titles of the 1950s to 1970s. 1940s to 1960s - The imprint place moved from New York (on 1950 and 1952 titles) to Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey (by 1959), which h
How many Prentice-Hall books does MyVolumes track?
We track 441 editions published by Prentice-Hall, 341 of them first editions, across 396 books.
