Ryerson Press

Ryerson Press was a Canadian book publishing company, active from 1919 to 1970. First established by the Methodist Book Room, a division of the Methodist Church of Canada, and operated by the United Church Publishing House after the Methodist Church's merger into the United Church of Canada in 1925, the imprint specialized in historical, educational and literary titles.

In 1970, the United Church Publishing House sold its trade publishing arm to McGraw-Hill, whose Canadian division was renamed McGraw-Hill Ryerson. The UCPH still publishes religious titles under its own name, and McGraw-Hill Ryerson is still in operation as McGraw Hill's Canadian subsidiary.

The Methodist Church first established its publishing operations in 1829 with the launch of the weekly newspaper The Christian Guardian. The paper's first editor was Egerton Ryerson. One month later, the church published its first book, starting at first with religious works and later branching out into educational and literary titles.

Prior to 1919, however, its general interest books were published under the name imprint of the individual person who held the position of book steward with the company at the time the book was published; the best known such imprint was William Briggs. Writers published in the William Briggs era included Robert W. Service, Charles G. D. Roberts, Wilfred Campbell and Catharine Parr Traill.

Shortly after succeeding Briggs as steward in 1919, Samuel W. Fallis decided to create a standard, consistent brand for the company, and chose to honour Ryerson for his founding role. Fallis selected Lorne Pierce as chief editor of the company, a role Pierce held until 1960.

Under Pierce's editorship, the company was a prominent publisher of educational textbooks, using the profits from this line of business to publish literary work by many of Canada's most important writers of the era, including Frederick Philip Grove, E. J. Pratt, A. J. M. Smith, A. M. Klein, P. K. Page, Dorothy Livesay, Earle Birney, Louis Dudek, Hugh Hood and Marjorie Pickthall. The company also created the Ryerson Fiction Award, an award program for emerging writers which was active from 1942 to 1960.

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