The Doubleday Publishing Group is a publishing company.

History

It was founded as Doubleday & McClure Company in 1897 by Frank Nelson Doubleday , who had formed a partnership with magazine publisher Samuel McClure. One of their first bestsellers was The Day's Work by Rudyard Kipling. Other authors published by the company in its early years include W. Somerset Maugham and Joseph Conrad. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. was later a vice-president of the company.

In 1900, the company became Doubleday, Page & Company when Walter Hines Page joined as a new partner. In 1922, the founder's son, Nelson Doubleday, joined the firm.

In 1927, Doubleday merged with the George H. Doran Company, creating Doubleday, Doran, the largest publishing business in the English-speaking world. In 1946, the company became Doubleday and Company and John Sargent became president and CEO during that time, with his son as a business associate in the publishing division.

In the late 1990s, Doubleday gained a younger audience after being mentioned several times in the sitcom, Seinfeld, as the company of which Elaine Benes wishes to be employed.

Doubleday was sold to Bertelsmann in 1986. In 1988 it became part of the Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, which in turn became a division of Random House in 1998.

In late 2008 and early 2009, the Doubleday imprint was merged with Knopf Publishing Group to form the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Notable editors

• Dean Giles Mgregor

• Stewart 'Sandy' Richardson

• Jacqueline Kennedy

Notable Authors

• A L Kennedy

• A. S. Byatt

• Alexander McCall Smith

• Andre Agassi

• Anne C. Heller

• Anne Rice

• Anne Tyler

• Carolina De Robertis

• Christopher Reich

• Chuck Palahniuk

• Dan Brown

• David Allen Sibley

• David Shields

• Graeme Gibson

• Haruki Murakami

• Henning Mankell

• Jacqueline Wilson

• James Ellroy

• John Burdett

• John Grisham

• Jon Krakauer

• Jonathan Lethem

• Margaret Atwood

• Michael Rubens

• Pat Conroy

• Paul Shaffer

• Peter Mayle

• Stephen L. Carter

• Stieg Larsson

• Tom Vanderbilt

• Vera Pavlova

• Vladimir Nabokov

Imprints

The following are imprints that exist or have existed under Doubleday:

• Anchor Books, produced quality paperback for bookstores; named for the anchor that (along with a dolphin) forms Doubleday's logo; now part of the Knopf Publishing Group's Vintage Anchor unit

• Blakiston Co., medical and scientific books. Sold in 1947 to McGraw-Hill

• Blue Ribbon Books, purchased in 1939 from Reynal & Hitchcock

• The Crime Club, active through much of the 20th century, publishing mystery and detective novels, most notably the Fu Manchu series by Sax Rohmer and the Saint series by Leslie Charteris

• Garden City Publishing Co., originally established as a separate firm by Nelson Doubleday, Garden City's books were primarily reprints of books first offered by Doubleday, printed from the original plates but on less expensive paper. It was named for the village on New York's Long Island in which Doubleday was long headquartered (until 1986), and which still houses Bookspan, the direct marketer of general interest and specialty book clubs run by Doubleday Direct and Book of the Month Club holdings.

• Image books, Catholic Books—still a Doubleday unit as part of Doubleday Religious Publishing

• Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, a literary imprint established in 1990. Talese, the imprint's publisher and editorial director, is a senior vice president of Doubleday.

• Permabooks, paperback division established in 1948

• Rimington & Hooper, high-quality limited editions

• Triangle Books, purchased in 1939 from Reynal & Hitchcock; sold inexpensive books through chain stores

• Zenith Books, aimed at African-American youths

Bookstores

• Doubleday Bookstores is now a part of Waldenbooks.

Andre Agassi

Former professional tennis player Andre Agassi published his autobiography with Doubleday in november 2009. This book is available not only in print format, but is also in abridged audio CD and downloadable audiobook.