1941 ; 75 years ago 1941 founder joseph meyers and edna meyers williams country of origin united states headquarters location new york city fiction genres romance imprints avon inspire avon red avon romance official website avonromance.com avon publications was an american paperback book and comic book publisher . as of 2010 it is an imprint of harpercollins publishing primarily romance novels . contents 1 history 2 avon comics 3 references 4 external links history edit avon books was founded in 1941 by the american news corporation anc to create a rival to pocket books . they hired brother and sister joseph meyers and edna meyers williams to establish the company . anc bought out j.s. ogilvie publications a dime novel publisher partly owned by both the meyers and renamed it avon publications . they also got into comic books . the early avons were somewhat similar in appearance to the existing paperbacks of pocket books resulting in an immediate and largely ineffective lawsuit by that company . despite this superficial similarity though from early on meyers differentiated avon by placing an emphasis on popular appeal rather than loftier concepts of literary merit . 1 the first 40 titles were not numbered . first editions of the first dozen or so have front and rear endpapers with an illustration of a globe . the emphasis on popular appeal led avon to publish ghost stories sexually suggestive love stories fantasy novels and science fiction in its early years which were far removed in audience appeal from the somewhat more literary pocket competition . avon fantasy reader is one of several digest format paperbacks that were once published by avon . as well as normal sized paperbacks avon published digest format paperbacks the size and shape of the present day ellery queen s mystery magazine in series . these included murder mystery monthly modern short story monthly and avon fantasy readers . many authors highly prized by present day collectors were published in these editions including a. merritt james m. cain h. p. lovecraft raymond chandler and robert e. howard . in 1953 avon books sold books in the price range of 25 to 50 for the avon g series the g standing for giant and were selling more than 20 million copies a year . their books were characterized by time magazine as westerns whodunits and the kind of boy meets girl story that can be illustrated by a ripe cheesecake jacket . 2 at around this time avon also began to publish under other imprints including eton 1951 1953 novel library broadway and diversey . avon s 35 cent t series introduced in 1953 also had strong mass market appeal and contains many outstanding examples of the then popular juvenile delinquent story . the t series also contained many movie tie in editions and the stand bys of mysteries and science fiction . avon was bought by the hearst corporation in 1959 . 3 in 1972 avon entered the modern romance genre with the publication of kathleen woodiwiss the flame and the flower . the novel went on to sell 2.35 million copies . 4 avon followed its release with the 1974 publication of woodiwiss s second novel the wolf and the dove and two sexy novels by newcomer rosemary rogers sweet savage love and dark fires . the latter sold two million copies in its first three months of release . in 1999 the news corporation bought out hearst s book division . avon s hardcover and non romance paperback lines were moved to sister company morrow leaving avon as solely a romance publisher . avon comics edit slave girl comics one of the titles published by avon avon published five issues of white princess of the jungle . avon revived the 1947 one shot title eerie in 1951 and gave it a 17 issue run . from at least 1945 through the mid 1950s avon published comic books . its titles included horror fiction science fiction westerns romance comics war comics and funny animal comics . most titles lasted only a few issues with the six longest running detailed in the complete list below all true detective atomic spy cases attack on planet mars avon fantasy an earth man on venus bachelor s diary badmen of the west badmen of tombstone behind prison bars betty and her steady the blackhawk indian tomahawk war blazing six guns boy detective buddies in the u.s. army butch cassidy campus romance captain silver s log of the sea hound captain steve savage 1950 and 1954 series chief crazy horse chief victorio s apache massacre city of the living dead complete romance cow puncher custer s last fight the dalton boys davy crockett diary of horror eerie escape from devil s island famous gangsters fighting daniel boone fighting davy crockett fighting indians of the wild west plus 1952 annual fighting undersea commandos flying saucers 1950 and 1952 series for a night of love frontier romances funnies annual funny tunes gangsters and gun molls geronimo going steady with betty jesse james 24 issues plus 1952 annual 1950 56 ; no issues 10 14 published king of the bad men of deadwood king solomon s mines kit carson last of the comanches little jack frost the mask of dr. fu manchu the masked bandit merry mouse molly o day murderous gangsters night of mystery out of this world out of this world adventures outlaws of the wild west pancho villa parole breakers penny peter rabbit comics 1 6 1947 1949 and peter rabbit 7 34 1950 56 peter rabbit easter parade one shot peter rabbit jumbo book one shot phantom witch doctor pixie puzzle rocket to adventureland one shot police line up prison break prison riot realistic romances red mountain featuring quantrell s raiders robotmen of the lost planet rocket to the moon romantic love 1949 and 1954 series the saint 12 issues 1947 1952 the savage raids of chief geronimo sea hound secret diary of eerie adventures sensational police cases sheriff bob dixon s chuck wagon sideshow slave girl comics space comics space detective space mouse space thrillers sparkling love spotty the pup strange worlds 22 issues 1950 1952 1954 1955 super pup teddy roosevelt and his rough riders television puppet show u.s. marines in action u.s. paratroops u.s. tank commandos undersea fighting commandos the underworld story the unknown man war dogs of the u.s. army western bandits white chief of the pawnee indians white princess of the jungle wild bill hickock 28 issues 1949 1956 witchcraft with the u.s. paratroops behind enemy lines zinco references edit canja jeff . 2002 collectable paperback books second edition east lansing mi glenmoor publishing . isbn 0 9673639 5 0 highbrow smorgasbord time magazine august 10 1953 . quiet deal time magazine august 31 1959 . darrach brad january 17 1977 . rosemary s babies . time . retrieved 2007 07 17 . external links edit wikimedia commons has media related to avon publications . official website v t e harpercollins united states avon caedmon ecco harper harper perennial i can read william morrow and company newmarket press united kingdom william collins sons collins bartholomew the friday project leckie & leckie australia angus & robertson christian biblegateway.com thomas nelson women of faith zondervan canada harlequin enterprises retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title avon publisher & oldid 733145435 categories book publishing companies based in new yorkcomic book publishing companies of the united statesharpercollins bookspublishing companies based in new york citypublishing companies established in 19411941 establishments in new yorkdefunct comics and manga publishing companieslists of comics by publishernews corporation subsidiarieshidden categories commons category with local link same as on wikidata navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version in other projects wikimedia commons languages deutschfran aisfrysk edit links this page was last modified on 5 august 2016 at 18 08 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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