Publisher · founded 1983 · New York

Villard Books

Villard Books is a Random House imprint founded in New York in 1983, now under Ballantine, and first publisher of Krakauer's Into the Wild and Into Thin Air.

Editions tracked: 29
First editions: 20
Books: 29
Years: 1983 to 2006

Search all Villard Books editions Wikidata

Villard Books is a publisher based in New York, founded in 1983. We track 29 editions it published between 1983 and 2006, 20 of them first editions across 29 books. Each book lists its first edition and the points that identify it.

About Villard Books

Villard Books is a New York publishing imprint founded in 1983 within Random House, whose first editions include Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild and Into Thin Air. It takes its name from the Stanford White brownstone mansion on Madison Avenue that served as Random House's headquarters for twenty years.

Villard began as an independent imprint of Random House and is now a sub-imprint of Ballantine Books, itself part of Random House. Random House merged with Penguin in 2013 to form Penguin Random House, which Bertelsmann has owned outright since buying the remaining 25% stake in 2019.

Notable Villard first editions include The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (1985), Robert Fulghum's All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (1988), David Halberstam's The Fifties (1993), John Boswell's Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe (1994), Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys (1995) and George Saunders's The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip (2000). Krakauer's Into the Wild, an expansion of his January 1993 Outside magazine article on Chris McCandless, was published on 13 January 1996, and Into Thin Air followed in 1997.

We have not yet written the guide to Villard Books's first-edition conventions. Until we do, check each book's own page: we list its points where we know them. Know how Villard Books marked its firsts? Tell us.