Viking

About Viking

Viking, originally The Viking Press, is an American publisher founded in New York City in 1925 by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheimer, and it is now an imprint of Penguin Random House in both the United States and Britain.

In August 1925 the new firm merged with B. W. Huebsch, Inc., and the combined business traded as The Viking Press, Inc. In 1933 it opened a children's department under the editor May Massee; its first title was The Story About Ping (1933), and Viking's children's list went on to include The Story of Ferdinand and Make Way for Ducklings. The adult list included John Steinbeck, Jack Kerouac, Saul Bellow, Arthur Miller and Graham Greene, and Viking also ran the Viking Portable Library.

From 1979 Viking was the American hardback publisher of many Stephen King novels, including The Dead Zone (1979), Cujo (1981) and Different Seasons (1982).

Penguin bought Viking in 1975 for a reported 12 million dollars, after which the American company traded as Viking Penguin. Viking is now owned by Penguin Random House, while in Britain Viking is a Penguin General imprint.

How to spot a Viking first edition

• Viking first printings carry no printing statement beyond the publication line, while later printings are recorded on the copyright page with their number or date, so any reprint note means a later printing.
• From the late 1930s onwards first printings typically read "First published in [year] by The Viking Press" (later "by Viking Penguin Inc.") or "Published in [year] by The Viking Press" on the copyright page; Viking's Stephen King firsts of 1979 to 1987 follow this pattern.

US first editions

• Viking's early method was to mark reprints rather than firsts: each later printing is recorded, with its number and date, on the copyright page, so a first is the copy with nothing to say otherwise. B. W. Huebsch, which merged into Viking in August 1925, worked the same way.
• From the late 1930s first printings usually carry a "First published ... by The Viking Press" style line, with reprints still noted. Stephen King's Viking firsts show it: "by the Viking Press" from 1979 to 1983 and "by Viking Penguin, Inc." from 1984 to 1987.
• Where a number row appears on the copyright page, the lowest figure is the printing, whatever order the figures run in (1 2 3 4 5, 1 3 5 4 2 or 5 4 3 2 1), so a row that still includes 1 normally means a first printing.
• Book-of-the-Month Club copies are usually the same size and quality as the trade edition, so size is no guide. Look instead for a jacket with no price on the front flap and a small blind stamp (a dot, circle or square) low on the rear board. BOMC printed prices on some jackets in the 1970s, but those copies still carry the blind stamp.
• A rear-board mark is not always a club sign: a few very large printings were shared between printing plants, each of which embossed its own mark.