Thorndike Press is an American large print reprint publisher, owned by G. K. Hall from 1990 and by Gale, now part of Cengage, since 1999. Its books are never first editions of the text.
Thorndike Press is an American large print publisher that has been part of Gale, the research and library publisher owned by Cengage, since 1999.
In 1990 Thorndike was bought by G. K. Hall & Co., which had been its main American rival in large print, and the Thorndike Press Large Print Paperback Series was issued under G. K. Hall. It later formed part of Macmillan Library Reference, which passed from Simon & Schuster to Pearson in 1998. In 1999 Thomson Gale (later simply Gale) bought Macmillan Library Reference from Pearson, bringing Thorndike Press with it. Gale, founded in Detroit in 1954, has been a division of Cengage since 2007, and lists Thorndike Large Print among its publication types alongside its other large print lines, Wheeler Publishing and Christian Large Print. Wikidata records Thorndike as a publishing house with Large Print Press as a division.
Holding a copy? The first edition checker shows Thorndike Press's practice for the year on your title page.
Identification
How to identify Thorndike Press first editions
What to look for
What a collector should know first: Thorndike is a large print reprint house. It resets texts that another publisher has already issued, so a Thorndike copy is never the first edition of the work. At most it is the first large print edition, which matters to a few completist author collectors and very little to the market.
1980s to 1990s
Each Thorndike book follows an earlier trade edition of the same text from another publisher; treat it as a later edition whatever the copyright page says.
Author bibliographies that list these books record them as large print editions, the earliest being the first large print edition, not as first editions.
UNVERIFIED: books of this period give Thorndike, Maine on the title page and print "Thorndike Large Print" on the back cover (recorded for a 1984 Tony Hillerman title).
From 2000
Still a large print reprint house, under Gale ownership from 1999; nothing under this imprint is a first edition of the text.
UNVERIFIED: the imprint place by this time reads Waterville, Maine.
UNVERIFIED: some titles were printed jointly with Chivers of Bath, the back cover naming both houses and the copyright page giving ISBNs for the American Thorndike edition and the British Windsor (hardback) and Paragon (paperback) editions from the same text block.
UNVERIFIED: the large print hardback and paperback of one title can look almost identical, so check the binding as well as the ISBN.
How do I identify a Thorndike Press first edition?
What a collector should know first: Thorndike is a large print reprint house. It resets texts that another publisher has already issued, so a Thorndike copy is never the first edition of the work. At most it is the first large print edition, which matters to a few completist author collectors and very little to the market. 1980s to 1990s - Each Thorndike book follows an earlier trade edition of th
How many Thorndike Press books does MyVolumes track?
We track 452 editions published by Thorndike Press, 0 of them first editions, across 452 books.
