Avon Publications

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Avon Publications was an American publisher based in New York City . Founded in 1941, the company was bought by Hearst Corporation in 1959 , whose publishing sector was again owned by Rupert Murdochs News Corporation in 1999 . The News Corporation subsidiary HarperCollins has since used the name "Avon" as an imprint mainly for romance novels .

Avon was an important publisher for comic and pulp books and in 1972 invented the principle of marketing serial entertainment novels ( trivial literature , especially Bodice Ripper novels) directly as cheap paperback editions ( mass market paperback ) without the expensive hardback edition that is otherwise customary in the industry allow.

history

In 1929 the New York publisher Joseph Myers (1898–1957) founded the Illustrated Editions Company , which marketed illustrated reprints of international fiction. In 1936, together with his sister Edna Myers Williams, he bought up the pulp magazine publisher JS Ogilvie Publications , in which he had only owned a share until then.

Independent publisher (1941–1959)

After Richard L. Simon and others founded Pocket Books in New York City in 1939 , which quickly conquered the cheap books market with its new pocket book format, the Myers siblings founded a new publisher in November 1941 to compete with Pocket Books Avon Publications . The company initially focused on crime novels by American and British writers. Avon's in-house authors in the 1940s and 1950s were Martha Albrand , James M. Cain , Raymond Chandler , Leslie Charteris , Peter Cheyney , Agatha Christie , Donald Henderson Clarke , Margaret Millar , Dorothy Sayers , Rex Stout , and the now largely forgotten Henry Kane and the author couple Frances and Richard Lockridge . In 1956 Avon was also able to recruit Ed McBain , who wrote no fewer than 33 detective novels for the company by 1994. Robert J. Hogan , Archie Lynn Joscelyn, and Paul Evan Lehman have published western novels with Avon ; Isaac Asimov , Aldous Huxley, and Abraham Merritt wrote science fiction ; HP Lovecraft wrote Fantasy. Avon also published authors such as Saul Bellow , John O'Hara , James Hilton , DH Lawrence , W. Somerset Maugham , Isaac Bashevis Singer , John Steinbeck , Jerome Weidman and Émile Zola .

Donald A. Wollheim

Until the mid-1950s, Avon also published comic books that covered a whole range of genres (horror, science fiction, westerns, war and love stories and comics with funny animal characters). In addition, Avon had pulp magazines such as For example, the Avon Fantasy Reader (1947-1952) published by Donald A. Wollheim in the program, in which novel excerpts and short stories were published.

Under Hearst

1959-1972

In June 1959 the company was bought by the Hearst Corporation . The authors of world literature took a back seat at Avon. The science fiction area developed all the more strongly; here were as authors John Christopher , the starship Enterprise -Nacherzähler James Blish , Harry Harrison , Clifford D. Simak , Brian Aldiss , Michael Crichton , Robert Silverberg , Joe Haldeman , Stanislaw Lem and Robert E. Vardeman be won. Willis Todhunter Ballard , Ray Hogan , William Colt MacDonald , Gordon D. Shirreffs , Norman A. Fox, and Janice Holt Giles wrote westerns, Thomas B. Costain and Talbot Mundy wrote adventure novels, Louis Auchincloss wrote social novels , and Hammond Innes and the now-forgotten Jack Hoffenberg wrote action novels and thrillers. New crime writers were Georges Simenon , Ross Thomas , Daphne du Maurier and Elizabeth Peters .

Joan Grant , Frances Parkinson Keyes , Agnes Sligh Turnbull and Jessamyn West wrote historical novels with female protagonists for Avon. Important new authors who could not be assigned to any genre were Muriel Spark , Jorge Amado , Iris Murdoch , Stephen Longstreet , Paul Scott and Alison Lurie .

1972-1999

Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

In April 1972, Avon brought Kathleen E. Woodiwiss ' first novel, The Flame and the Flower (German: Where the storm us carries ) on the market, one Bodice Ripper , whose action at the turn of the 19th century and in London and South Carolina was located . This market launch was unusual for the publication of a fat love novel in that Avon completely dispensed with a hardback edition and immediately offered the cheaply produced paperback edition. Avon had a first run of 500,000 copies printed; by 1978 the total print run rose to 2,655,500 copies, and the book has been reprinted again and again up to the present day.

Woodiwiss wrote 12 other bodice ripper and other romance novels for Avon through 2000. In the Bodice Ripper area, she was followed in 1974 by Patricia Hagan and Rosemary Rogers , in 1975 Laurie McBain , in 1976 Joyce Verrette , in 1977 Shirlee Busbee and the very productive Johanna Lindsey , in 1978 Jude Deveraux and Bertrice Small , and finally in 1983 Mary Daheim . Avon also published large numbers of historical romance novels during this period that were not Bodice Ripper, especially by Patricia Gallagher , Judith E. French , Deborah Camp , Brenda Joyce , Lois Greiman , and the Regency romance novels by Kasey Michaels and Jo Beverley . Beverly Jenkins contributed historical romance novels that reflect the African American experience. Colleen McCullough , Catherine Lanigan and Susan Elizabeth Phillips have published romance novels with contemporary plot frames at Avon.

After the introduction of the Mass Market Paperback format, the crime novel also experienced a new upswing at Avon. The most successful crime writers to be recruited during this period were Lawrence Block , Jerome Charyn , Charlotte MacLeod , Patrick Quentin (= Richard Wilson Webb and Hugh Callingham Wheeler ), Elizabeth Lowell (= Ann Maxwell ), Donald E. Westlake , Judith A. Jance , Elliott Roosevelt , Sara Woods (= Lana Hutton Bowen-Judd ), Faye Kellerman , Margery Allingham , Philip R. Craig , Jill Churchill , Katherine Hall Page , Peter Robinson and Joanne Pence . Shirley Rousseau Murphy has published crime novels at Avon since 1979, in which a cat led the investigation. Alan Caillou , Piers Paul Read and the now largely forgotten authors Frank Garrett and Steve MacKenzie delivered thrillers, action and adventure novels . Clay Tanner wrote for Avon Western; the resulting already in the 1950s Western novels of Petersfield (= were reprinted W. Ryerson Johnson ). In the fantasy area, Michael Moorcock , the extremely productive Piers Anthony , William Kotzwinkle , Roger Zelazny , Steve Lawhead , Tom Deitz and Adrian Cole wrote for Avon . WED Ross and Michael McDowell joined as authors of horror novels .

New authors whose work defies classification were William E. Barrett , Joanne Greenberg, and Bernard Malamud . Novels by Elizabeth Bowen and Elizabeth Ogilvie were also reissued in the 1970s .

Under Murdoch (since 1999)

In July 1999 Hearst's publishers - besides Avon also Morrow - were bought for 180 million dollars by the News Corporation, which they combined with its subsidiary HarperCollins , which has since used the name "Avon" only as an imprint.

Since then, the name "Avon" has mainly stood for romance novels, with HarperCollins relying even more than Hearst on the pull of a comparatively small number of highly productive top authors. Johanna Lindsey, Lisa Kleypas and Kathleen E. Woodiwiss were taken over from the old Avon publishing house. Most of the women who have been writing for the Imprint "Avon" since 1999 have been recruited. Many of them write Regency romance novels, including Stephanie Laurens , who was signed in 1999 and has published more than 50 volumes to date, but also Julia Quinn , Cathy Maxwell , Victoria Alexander , Suzanne Enoch , Elizabeth Boyle , Eloisa James , Sophie Jordan and Maya Rodale . Gayle Callen , Christina Dodd , Lorraine Heath , Kinley MacGregor (= Sherrilyn Kenyon ), Kathryn Smith , Sara Bennett , Donna Fletcher and Sandra Hill contribute other forms of historical romance novels.

Lynsay Sands and Karen Ranney switched from historical to paranormal (vampire) romance novels in 2004 and 2014 respectively, a subgenre in which Christine Feehan , Marjorie Liu and Jeaniene Frost are now also active. Kerrelyn Sparks has been publishing vampire comedies on Avon since 2005. Rachel Gibson , Lori Wilde (= Laurie Blalock Vanzura ) and Darlene Panzera write romance novels with a modern plot, and Toni Blake specializes in erotic romance novels.

HarperCollins publishes some of its books under sub-imprints of Avon:

In addition to romance novels, detective novels are also marketed under the “Avon” imprint. Authors who were taken over from the Hearst era are Elizabeth Lowell, Elizabeth Peters, Judith A. Jance, Jill Churchill, Katherine Hall Page, Peter Robinson and Mary Daheim, who had previously written romance novels but now switched to the crime genre. The crime writers Carolin G. Hart , Laura Lippman and Tamar Myers were newly signed .

Web links

Commons : Avon Publications  - collection of images, videos, and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Avon Books. Retrieved July 11, 2016 .
  2. ^ Avon Periodicals. Retrieved July 11, 2016 .
  3. ↑ s: en: Avon Fantasy Reader
  4. ↑ Avon 1945–1955. Retrieved July 11, 2016 .
  5. ^ Giovanna Breu: Romance Writer Kathleen Woodiwiss Is Passionate About Horses — and Happy Endings. In: People. February 7, 1983. Retrieved July 12, 2016 . New York Magazine. Passionate Paperbacks . New York February 13, 1978, p.  49 ( limited preview in Google Book search). OCLC WorldCat: The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. Retrieved July 12, 2016 .
  6. ↑ Benjamin M. Compaine, Douglas Gomery: Who Owns the Media? Competition and Concentration in the Mass Media industry . Routledge, London, New York 2000, ISBN 978-0-8058-2936-5 , pp. 99 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  7. ↑ Trade Paperback Line reinvigoretes publishing program with A-list fiction and female-focused non-fiction titles. Retrieved July 16, 2016 .