Doubleday

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubleday_(publisher)

Founded: 1897 by Frank Nelson Doubleday & S. S. McClure

First Paperback Series: Anchor Books (1953-)

Status: Imprint, as Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, of Penguin Random House

Cult of the Colophon, PW, Aug. 6, 1927, at 384-389 (Doubleday's colophon is on page 386).

Frank Nelson Doubleday (1862-1934): Head of Great Publishing Firm Dies at Age of 72, PW, Feb. 3, 1934, at 583-586.

DOUBLEDAY: THE STORY OF A COMBINED OPERATION IN BOOK PUBLISHING (Doubleday, Doran 1945).

Doubleday Establishes One Overall Paperback Dept., PW, July 11, 1960, at 42-43:

Doubleday is greatly expanding its entire paperbound publishing program and establishing a separate new quality paperback department which will carry the overall name of Anchor Books and will include the present Anchor line, Dolphin Books, the Science Study Series, Made Simple Books and several other entirely new Doubleday paperback lines, details of which will be announced later. Of the various Doubleday paperback enterprises only Image Books, the Catholic line edited by John J. Delaney, will remain outside the new Anchor Books department as a separate enterprise of the Doubleday trade department.

The new Anchor Books department will be headed by Leonard Shatzkin, Doubleday's research director, who played a large role in developing the Doubleday Merchandising Plan (PW, Feb. 23, 1959). Pyke Johnson, Jr., who has been editor of the present Anchor Books line since 1958 (PW, Sept. 15, 1958), will be editor-in-chief of the entire new paperback department. [AND MUCH MORE].

Doubleday, PW, June 20, 1960, at 4 (noting Doubleday's Paperbacks & Books of College-Interest catalog, directed at the university market and arranged by series, then title).

Doubleday Reorganizes Its Paperback Distribution, PW, Oct. 17, 1960, at 41-42.

Doubleday occasionally published catalogs of all their paperbacks in print, starting in late 1961 (see PW, Aug. 21, 1961, at 93). [Scans of 1964 edition]

F.N. Doubleday, THE MEMOIRS OF A PUBLISHER (Doubleday 1972).

Terry Considine Williams, Once Doubleday Was a King, Now House Gets a New Look, NY TIMES (Oct. 6, 1999), https://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/06/nyregion/once-doubleday-was-a-king-now-house-gets-a-new-look.html (about the Garden City printing plant).

Partial Company History

  • 1897: founded as Doubleday & McClure Company by Frank Nelson Doubleday & S. S. McClure

  • 1900: Nelson Doubleday split off from McClure and formed Doubleday, Page & Company with Walter Hines Page

  • 1910: moved operations to Garden City, NY

  • 1927: merged with the George H. Doran Company to form Doubleday, Doran

  • 1944: became Doubleday and Company

  • 1953: started quality paperback imprint Anchor Books

  • 1976: Doubleday purchased Dell Publishing

  • 1986: Nelson Doubleday, Jr., sold Doubleday to Bertelsmann

  • 1988: portions of Doubleday became part of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group

  • 1998: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group became a division of Random House

  • 2008-2009: Doubleday merged with Knopf Publishing Group to form Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group