The Viking Press is a New York publisher founded in 1925 by Harold Guinzburg and George Oppenheimer; it published The Grapes of Wrath and has belonged to Penguin since 1975.
The Viking Press is an American publisher founded in New York City on 1 March 1925 by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheimer, and it is now an imprint of Penguin Random House.
Viking published John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath on 14 April 1939, and its list over the decades included James Joyce, Stephen King and Roald Dahl. A children's department, Junior Books, opened in 1933; its first title was The Story About Ping, and later children's books on the Viking list include The Twenty-One Balloons (1947). The firm also ran the Viking Portable Library series.
Facing financial difficulty, Viking was bought by the Penguin Group in 1975, and from the mid 1980s its American books carried the Viking Penguin name. It passed into Penguin Random House when Penguin and Random House merged in 2013, and its imprints include Viking Adult, Viking Children's Books and Pamela Dorman Books.
Holding a copy? The first edition checker shows Viking Press's practice for the year on your title page.
Identification
How to identify Viking Press first editions
What to look for
A Viking first printing usually carries a plain "First published in (year) by The Viking Press" statement on the copyright page, with no record of later printings.
How to read it
The copyright page states when Viking first published the book, sometimes with the month, for example "First published ... September 1952" on Steinbeck's East of Eden.
Later books add a printing number line; a first printing still has the 1 in it, whatever order the numbers run in.
Traps
Book club jackets. Book club editions are often smaller and their jackets usually have no price on the front flap; such jackets are sometimes put on first editions to replace a lost original, so check the flap price.
A Viking first printing usually carries a plain "First published in (year) by The Viking Press" statement on the copyright page, with no record of later printings. How to read it - The copyright page states when Viking first published the book, sometimes with the month, for example "First published ... September 1952" on Steinbeck's East of Eden . - Later books add a printing number line; a first
How many Viking Press books does MyVolumes track?
We track 41 editions published by Viking Press, 27 of them first editions, across 41 books.
