Viking Press
Parent company | Penguin Random House |
---|---|
Status | Active |
Founded | 1925 |
Founders | Harold K. Guinzburg, George S. Oppenheim |
Country of origin | United States |
Headquarters location | New York City, New York |
Key people | President-Brian Tart, Children's publisher Kenneth Wright |
Imprints | Pamela Dorman |
Official website |
penguin |
Viking Press is an American publishing company now owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim[1] and then acquired by the Penguin Group in 1975.[2]
The firm's name and logo—a Viking ship drawn by Rockwell Kent—were meant to evoke the ideas of adventure, exploration, and enterprise implied by the word "Viking".
The house has been home to many prominent authors of fiction, non-fiction, and play scripts. Five Viking authors have been awarded Nobel Prizes for Literature and one received the Nobel Peace Prize; Viking books have also won numerous Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, and other important literary prizes.
Viking publishes approximately 100 books a year. It is notable for publishing both successful commercial fiction and acclaimed literary fiction and non-fiction, and its paperbacks are most often published by Penguin Books. Viking's current president is Brian Tart.
The Viking Children's Book department was established in 1933; its founding editor was May Massee. Viking Kestrel was one of its imprints. Its books have won the Newbery and Caldecott Medals, and include such books as The Twenty-One Balloons, written and illustrated by William Pene du Bois (1947, Newbery medal winner for 1948), Corduroy, Make Way for Ducklings, The Stinky Cheese Man by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith (1993), The Outsiders, Pippi Longstocking, and The Story of Ferdinand. Its paperbacks are published by Puffin Books, which includes the Speak and Firebird imprints. From 2012 and as of 2016, Viking Children's publisher is Kenneth Wright.[3]
Notable editors
- Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Consulting Editor
Notable authors
- Abdullah II, King of Jordan
- Kingsley Amis
- Sherwood Anderson
- Hannah Arendt
- Antony Beevor
- Saul Bellow
- Ludwig Bemelmans
- T. C. Boyle
- Geraldine Brooks
- Daniel James Brown
- Lan Cao
- William S. Burroughs
- Rosanne Cash
- J.M. Coetzee
- Theodore Draper
- Lawrence Durrell
- Kim Edwards
- Daniel Ellsberg
- Helen Fielding
- Frederick Forsyth
- Tana French
- Elizabeth Gilbert
- Rumer Godden
- Elizabeth George
- Will Gompertz
- Graham Greene
- Robert Greene
- Martha Grimes
- James Weldon Johnson
- Jan Karon
- Garrison Keillor
- William Kennedy
- Jack Kerouac
- Ken Kesey
- Kristopher Jansma
- James Joyce
- Sue Monk Kidd
- D.H. Lawrence
- Peter Matthiessen
- Stephen King
- Terry McMillan
- Arthur Miller
- Jojo Moyes
- Octavio Paz
- Steven Pinker
- Thomas Pynchon
- Kate Seredy
- Wallace Stegner
- John Steinbeck
- Rex Stout
- August Strindberg
- Whitney Terrell
- Carl Van Doren
- William T. Vollmann
- David Foster Wallace
- Rebecca West
- Patrick White
References
- ↑ Kenneth T. Jackson; Lisa Keller; Nancy Flood (1995). The Encyclopedia of New York City: Second Edition. New York: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300055368.
- ↑ Egli, ed. (1975). "Viking Press Is Sold To Penguin Books". School Library Journal. 22 (4): 16.
- ↑ "Viking Children's Books". Penguin Random House. Retrieved April 17, 2016.