Listening Library
| Parent company | Penguin Random House |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1927 |
| Founder | Bennett Cerf, Donald Klopfer |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Headquarters location | Random House Tower, New York City, New York, United States |
| Distribution | Worldwide |
| Key people |
Markus Dohle (CEO, Penguin Random House) Núria Cabutí (CEO, Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial) Gina Centrello (President & Publisher, The Random House Publishing Group) Anthony Chirico (President, Knopf Publishing Group) Barbara Marcus (President & Publisher, Random House Children's Books) Brad Martin (President & CEO, Random House of Canada) Maya Mavjee (President & Publisher, Crown Publishing Group) Nihar Malaviya (Chief Operating Officer, Random House, Inc.) Sonny Mehta (Chairman & Editor-in-Chief, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group) Gail Rebuck (Chairman & CEO, The Random House Group UK) Dr. Frank Sambeth (Chairman & CEO, Verlagsgruppe Random House) Frank Steinert (Executive Vice President & Chief Human Resources Officer, Random House Worldwide) |
| Publication types | Books |
| Revenue |
 €2.142 billion Euros (2012) |
| Owner(s) |
Bertelsmann Pearson PLC |
| No. of employees | 5,712 (as of December 31, 2012) |
| Official website | penguinrandomhouse |
Random House is the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. As of 2013, it is part of Penguin Random House, which is jointly owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann and British global education and publishing company Pearson PLC.
Random House was founded in 1925 by Americans Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer, two years after they acquired the Modern Library imprint from publisher Horace Liveright, which reprints classic works of literature. Cerf is quoted as saying, "We just said we were going to publish a few books on the side at random," which suggested the name Random House. In 1934 they published the first authorized edition of James Joyce's novel Ulysses in the Anglophone world.
Ulysses really launched Random House. ... Random House grew into a formidable publisher over the next two decades. In 1936, it absorbed the firm of Smith and Haas—Robert Haas became the third partner until retiring and selling his share back to Bennett and Donald in 1956—which added authors including Faulkner, Isak Dinesen, André Malraux, Robert Graves, and Jean de Brunhoff, who wrote the Babar children's books. Random House also hired legendary editors Harry Maule, Robert Linscott, and Saxe Commins, and they brought authors such as Sinclair Lewis and Robert Penn Warren with them.
In October 1959, Random House went public at $11.25 a share. This move drew other publishing companies such as Simon & Schuster to later go public.
Random House entered reference publishing in 1947 with the American College Dictionary, which was followed in 1966 by its first unabridged dictionary.
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