citations for verification . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . august 2013 learn how and when to remove this template message william collins sons parent company harpercollins founded 1819 founder william collins country of origin united kingdom publication types books official website www.collins.co.uk william collins sons often referred to as collins was a scottish printing company founded by a presbyterian schoolmaster william collins in glasgow in 1819 in partnership with charles chalmers the younger brother of thomas chalmers minister of tron church glasgow . history edit the company had to overcome many early obstacles and charles chalmers left the business in 1825 . the company eventually found success in 1841 as a printer of bibles and in 1848 collins s son sir william collins developed the firm as a publishing venture specializing in religious and educational books . the company was renamed william collins sons and co ltd. in 1868 . 1 although the early emphasis of the company had been on religion and education collins also published more widely . in 1917 with sir godfrey collins in charge the firm started publishing fiction . collins crime club 1930 94 published all but the first six of agatha christie s novels starting in 1926 as well as the british editions of rex stout s nero wolfe books and many others from the golden age of detective fiction . upon purchasing the rights to the works of c. s. lewis fount was established as collins s religion imprint . collins ultimately became a diverse and prolific company publishing a wide range of titles including many aimed at a juvenile audience such as the books of the author and illustrator racey helps in the 1950s . by the late 1970s wm collins & sons was also responsible for publishing the long running american children s hardy boys and nancy drew series in the united kingdom . these were firstly published in a series of digest size hardbacks akin to their american style . paperbacks of a normal rather than digest size soon followed from collins armada books imprint although the series as published in england follow a different numbering system to the accepted american one . collins s armada books imprint also published similar series such as the three investigators alongside such british stalwarts as biggles billy bunter and paddington bear and such well loved authors as enid blyton malcolm saville and diana pullein thompson . collins founded its new naturalist series of nature books relevant to the british isles in 1945 with butterflies by e. b. ford . the most recent three volumes appeared in the summer of 2015 . 2 in 1990 the company was merged with us publisher harper and row and renamed harpercollins . collins became an imprint of harpercollins . on 8 february 2013 it was announced that some parts of the collins non fiction imprint would be merged with the harperpress imprint to form a new william collins imprint . 3 references edit keir david 1952 . the house of collins the story of a scottish family of publishers from 1789 to the present day . collins london . isbn b00005xh0x . no. 128 lakes loughs and lochs by brian moss ; no. 129 alien plants by clive a. stace and michael j. crawley ; no. 130 yorkshire dales by john lee . retrieved 22 january 2016 . farrington joshua 8 february 2013 . harpercollins merges non fiction divisions . bookseller . retrieved 20 february 2013 . external links edit 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 william collins sons & oldid 743906267 categories william collins sons booksbook publishing companies of scotlandpublishing companies established in 18191819 establishments in scotlandpublishing companies disestablished in 1990harpercollins booksnews corporation subsidiarieshidden categories articles needing additional references from august 2013all articles needing additional references 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 languages fran ais edit links this page was last modified on 11 october 2016 at 23 40 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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