active founded 1989 ; 27 years ago 1989 country of origin united states united kingdom headquarters location 195 broadway new york city distribution global imprints numerous official website harpercollins.com harpercollins publishers llc is one of the world s largest publishing companies and is part of the big five english language publishing companies alongside hachette holtzbrinck macmillan penguin random house and simon & schuster . the company is headquartered in new york city and is a subsidiary of news corp. the company name is a combination of several publishing firm names harper & row an american publishing company acquired in 1987 whose own name was the result of an earlier merger of harper & brothers founded 1817 and row peterson & company ; together with uk publishing company william collins sons founded 1819 acquired in 1990 . the worldwide ceo of harpercollins is brian murray . 1 harpercollins has publishing groups in the united states canada the united kingdom australia new zealand and india . the company publishes many different imprints both former independent publishing houses and new imprints . contents 1 history 1.1 collins 1.2 harper 1.3 mergers and acquisitions 1.4 management history 1.5 united states v. apple inc. 1.6 u.s. warehouse closings 2 notable books 2.1 harper children s books 3 imprints 3.1 current 3.1.1 adult 3.1.2 children 3.1.3 christian 3.1.4 audio 3.1.5 bureau 3.1.6 digital 3.2 defunct 4 business strategy 4.1 web approach 4.2 speakers bureau 4.3 harperstudio 4.4 harpercollins india 5 controversies 5.1 if i did it 5.2 ben collins 5.3 east and west 5.4 ebooks 5.5 omission of israel from an atlas 6 see also 7 references 8 external links history edit the news building harpercollins s uk headquarters in london collins edit main article william collins sons harper edit main article harper publisher mergers and acquisitions edit in 1989 collins was bought by rupert murdoch s news corporation and the publisher was combined with harper & row which newscorp had acquired two years earlier . in addition to the simplified and merged name the logo for harpercollins was derived from the torch logo for harper and row and the fountain logo for collins which were combined into a stylized set of flames atop waves . in 1999 news corporation purchased the hearst book group consisting of william morrow & company and avon books . these imprints are now published under the rubric of harpercollins . 2 harpercollins bought educational publisher letts and lonsdale in march 2010 . citation needed in 2011 harpercollins announced they had agreed to acquire the publisher thomas nelson . 3 the purchase was completed on july 11 2012 with an announcement that thomas nelson would operate independently given the position it has in christian book publishing . 4 both thomas nelson and zondervan were then organized as imprints or keystone publishing programs under a new division harpercollins christian publishing . 5 6 key roles in the reorganization were awarded to former thomas nelson executives . 7 management history edit brian murray 8 the current ceo of harpercollins succeeded jane friedman who was ceo from 1997 to 2008 . notable management figures include lisa sharkey current senior vice president and director of creative development and barry winkleman from 1989 to 1994 . united states v. apple inc. edit in april 2012 the united states department of justice filed united states v. apple inc. naming apple harpercollins and four other major publishers as defendants . the suit alleged that they conspired to fix prices for e books and weaken amazon.com s position in the market in violation of antitrust law . 9 in december 2013 a federal judge approved a settlement of the antitrust claims in which harpercollins and the other publishers paid into a fund that provided credits to customers who had overpaid for books due to the price fixing . 10 u.s. warehouse closings edit it was announced to employees privately and then later in the day on november 5 2012 that harpercollins was closing its remaining two u.s. warehouses in order to merge shipping and warehousing operations with r. r. donnelley in indiana . the scranton pa warehouse closed in september 2013 and a nashville tn warehouse under the name d.b.a. thomas nelson which distributes the religious arm of harpercollins zondervan books in the winter of 2013 . several office positions and departments continued to work for harpercollins in scranton but in a new location . 11 the scranton warehouse closing eliminated approximately 200 jobs and the nashville warehouse closing eliminated up to 500 jobs exact number of distribution employees is unknown 12 harpercollins previously closed 2 u.s. warehouses one in williamsport pa in 2011 and another in grand rapids mi in 2012 . 13 we have taken a long term global view of our print distribution and are committed to offering the broadest possible reach for our authors said harpercollins chief executive brian murray according to publishers weekly . we are retooling the traditional distribution model to ensure we can competitively offer the entire harpercollins catalog to customers regardless of location . company officials attribute the closings and mergers to the rapidly growing demand for e book formats and the decline in print purchasing . citation needed notable books edit harpercollins maintains the backlist of many of the books originally published by their many merged imprints in addition to having picked up new authors since the merger . authors published originally by harper include mark twain the bront sisters and william makepeace thackeray . authors published originally by collins include h. g. wells agatha christie and j. r. r. tolkien . this is a list of some of the more noted books and series published by harpercollins and their various imprints and merged publishing houses . this is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness . you can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries . the art of loving erich fromm 1956 master and commander patrick o brian 1970 adapted into the 2003 film master and commander the far side of the world the leaphorn and chee books tony hillerman 1970 2006 collins english dictionary 1979 a major dictionary 14 sharpe series bernard cornwell 1981 2006 frida a biography of frida kahlo hayden herrera 1983 adapted into the 2002 film frida weaveworld clive barker 1987 the paladin poetry series 1987 1993 of gravity & angels jane hirshfield 1988 the alchemist paulo coelho 1988 first published in portuguese as o alquimista 1988 subsequent novels in the take back plenty series colin greenland 1990 the language of the genes steve jones 1993 the gifts of the body rebecca brown 1994 microserfs douglas coupland 1995 thoughts tionne watkins 1999 shuka saptati seventy tales of the parrot a new translation from the sanskrit by a. n. d. haksar 2000 first they killed my father a daughter of cambodia remembers loung ung 2000 bel canto ann patchett 2001 a theory of relativity jacquelyn mitchard 2001 recent volumes in the discworld series by terry pratchett books from 2001 to present american gods neil gaiman 2001 boonville robert mailer anderson 2003 reprint quicksilver neal stephenson 2003 don quixote a new translation by edith grossman 2003 ecco acquainted with the night christopher dewdney 2004 state of fear by michael crichton 2004 darkhouse alex barclay 2005 anansi boys neil gaiman 2005 the hot kid elmore leonard 2005 freaky green eyes by joyce carol oates 2006 next michael crichton 2006 domicilium decoratus kelly wearstler 2006 isbn 0 06 089798 8 pretty little liars sara shepard 2006 mister b. gone clive barker harper 2007 the children of h rin j. r. r. tolkien posthumous compiled by christopher tolkien 2007 loving natalee a mother s testament of hope and faith beth holloway 2007 about natalee holloway the raw shark texts steven hall 2007 the family the secret fundamentalism at the heart of american power jeff sharlet 2008 going rogue an american life sarah palin 2009 solo rana dasgupta 2009 the legend of sigurd and gudr n j. r. r. tolkien 2009 copublished by houghton mifflin harcourt pirate latitudes michael crichton 2009 posthumous publication wolf hall hilary mantel 2009 shattered the true story of a mother s love a husband s betrayal and a cold blooded texas murder kathryn casey 2010 micro michael crichton 2011 posthumous publication the dressmaker of khair khana gayle tzemach lemmon 2011 a shot at history my obsessive journey to olympic gold by abhinav bindra 2011 go set a watchman by harper lee 2015 harper children s books edit children s book editor ursula nordstrom was the director of harper s department of books for boys and girls from 1940 to 1973 overseeing the publication of classics such as goodnight moon where the wild things are the giving tree charlotte s web beverly cleary s series starring ramona quimby and harold and the purple crayon . they were the publishing home of maurice sendak shel silverstein and margaret wise brown . 15 in 1998 nordstrom s personal correspondence was published as dear genius the letters of ursula nordstrom illustrated by maurice sendak edited by charlotte zolotow . zolotow began her career as a stenographer to nordstrom became her protege and went on to write more than 80 books and edit hundreds of others including nordstrom s the secret language and the works of paul fleischman . zolotow later became head of the children s books department and went on to become the company s first female vice president . the chronicles of narnia series by c.s. lewis while not originally published by a merged imprint of harpercollins were acquired by the publisher . citation needed harpercollins has published the following notable children s books this is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness . you can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries . the i can read series for beginning readers including the amelia bedelia peggy parish frog and toad arnold lobel and little bear else holmelund minarik and maurice sendak books the warriors series a series of unfortunate events lemony snicket a taste of blackberries doris buchanan smith 1973 skulduggery pleasant series derek landy bart simpson s guide to life 1993 love that dog sharon creech 2001 the giving tree shel silverstein 1964 where the sidewalk ends book shel silverstein 1974 the saga of darren shan darren shan 2000 2004 cirque du freak manga series darren shan and takahiro arai 2006 2009 the dangerous book for boys conn and hal iggulden 2006 sabriel garth nix 1995 a barrel of laughs a vale of tears jules feiffer 1995 mister god this is anna fynn pseudonym of sydney hopkins 1974 the little house on the prairie series laura ingalls wilder 1932 2006 the wolves in the walls neil gaiman and dave mckean 2003 monster walter dean myers 1999 coraline neil gaiman and dave mckean 2002 the pretty little liars series by sara shepard 2007 present surviving the applewhites stephanie s. tolan 2002 ruby redfort series lauren child 2011 divergent veronica roth 2011 the school for good and evil soman chainani 2013 present imprints edit harpercollins has over 120 book imprints most of which are based in the united states . 16 collins still exists as an imprint chiefly for wildlife and natural history books field guides as well as english and bilingual dictionaries based on the bank of english a large corpus of contemporary english texts . on february 8 2013 it was announced that some parts of the collins non fiction imprint would be merged with the harperpress imprint to form the new william collins imprint . 17 harpercollins imprints current and defunct including imprints that existed prior to various mergers include current edit adult edit 4th estate 18 amistad primarily books of african american interest named for the storied ship la amistad anthony bourdain books avon avon impulse digital imprint avon inspire avon red avon romance bourbon street books broadside books collins dey street ecco harlequin enterprises carina press