Reilly & Britton
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| Status | Defunct |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1904 |
| Founder | Sumner Charles Britton and Frank Kennicott Reilly |
| Successor | Regnery Publishing |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Headquarters location | Chicago |
| Publication types | Books |
The Reilly and Britton Company, or Reilly & Britton (after 1918, Reilly & Lee) was an American publishing company of the early and middle 20th century, famous as the publisher of the works of L. Frank Baum.
When the Chicago publishing firm of George M. Hill, the publisher of the first edition of Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), went out of business in March 1902, two of its employees, head salesman Sumner Charles Britton and production manager Frank Kennicott Reilly, formed their own publishing venture, the Madison Book Company of Chicago. (Britton was an Arkansas native who first came to Chicago in 1893, to report on the World's Columbian Exposition for The Kansas City Star. He was strongly enough impressed with the city to relocate there in July 1894.)
In 1904, Reilly and Britton decided to incorporate as a new publishing house under their own names. Needing a name author, the new partners solicited Baum, who was unhappy with his arrangement with Bobbs-Merrill, publisher of several of his previous works. Signing Baum to an exclusive contract (dated 16 January 1904), the partners and their author agreed that the best way to start their joint effort was with a sequel to Baum's greatest success to date: the second of the Oz books, The Marvelous Land of Oz, was in print later in 1904, in time for the Christmas season.
With a strong initial focus on children's books, the firm published editions of the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen and The Brothers Grimm in 1905; but their mainstay in their early years remained L. Frank Baum. Reilly & Britton issued eleven titles by Baum in 1906: the fantasy novel John Dough and the Cherub, under Baum's name; Daughters of Destiny, an adult romance by "Schuyler Staunton;" the juvenile novel Annabel, by "Suzanne Metcalf;" a book for boys, Sam Steele's Adventures on Land and Sea, by "Capt. Hugh Fitzgerald," and one for girls, Aunt Jane's Nieces, by "Edith Van Dyne" — the last one was so successful that it inspired a ten-volume series of the same name. There was also a set of six booklets for small children, collectively known as The Twinkle Tales, by "Laura Bancroft," with illustrations by Maginel Wright Enright. The six were a popular success, selling a total of 40,000 copies, and were later re-printed in one volume, as Twinkle and Chubbins: Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland (1911). The firm paid Baum a 10% royalty on each of the first five books, and two-and-a-half cents per copy on the booklets. (Mindful of his past financial difficulties, Baum also negotiated monthly royalty payments, instead of the more usual yearly payment.) If the six booklets are counted as a single full-length volume, the firm issued six books by Baum in 1906 alone.
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