Parent company | Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (Random House) |
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Founded | 1897 |
Founder | Frank Nelson Doubleday and Samuel McClure |
Country of origin | United States |
Headquarters location | New York City |
Publication types | Books |
Official website | doubleday |
Doubleday is an American publishing company founded as Doubleday & McClure Company in 1897 that by 1947 was the largest in the United States. It published the work of mostly U.S. authors under a number of imprints and distributed them through its own stores. In 2009 Doubleday was merged with Knopf Publishing Group to form the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
The firm was founded as Doubleday & McClure Company in 1897 by Frank Nelson Doubleday, who had formed a partnership with the 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. later served as 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 1910, Doubleday, Page, and Co. moved its operations, which include a train station, to Garden City. The Doubleday company purchased much of the land on the west side of Franklin Avenue, and estate homes were built for many of its executives on Fourth Street. In 1916, company co-founder and Garden City resident Walter Hines Page was named Ambassador to Great Britain.
In 1927, Doubleday merged with the George H. Doran Company, creating Doubleday, Doran, then the largest publishing business in the English-speaking world. In 1946, the company became Doubleday and Company. Nelson Doubleday, Jr. resigned as president, but continued as chairman of the board until his death on January 11, 1949. Douglas Black took over and was president from 1946 to 1963.
By 1947, Doubleday was the largest publisher in the US, with annual sales of over 30 million books.