Bobbs-Merrill Company
| Parent company | SAMS Publishing (1959-1985) |
|---|---|
| Status | Defunct |
| Founded | 1850 |
| Founder | Samuel Merrill |
| Successor | Macmillan |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Headquarters location | Indianapolis, Indiana |
The Bobbs-Merrill Company was a book publisher located in Indianapolis, Indiana. Bobbs-Merrill was known for publishing such authors as Richard Halliburton, David Markson, Ayn Rand, James Whitcomb Riley, Walter Dean Myers, and Irma S. Rombauer. Bobbs-Merrill also published the early works of America's first successful writer of fantasy, L. Frank Baum, whose 1900 book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is recognized as America's first home-grown fairy tale. Bobbs-Merrill was also responsible for publishing the official records of the State of Indiana and texts in the history of philosophy.
The company history starts in 1850 when Samuel Merrill bought an Indianapolis bookstore and entered the publishing business. After his death in 1855, his son, Samuel Merrill, Jr. continued the business. Soon after the Civil War the business became Merrill, Meigs, and Company, and in 1883 the name changed again to the Bowen-Merrill Company. In 1903 the name became the Bobbs-Merrill Company, after long-time director, William Conrad Bobbs. From 1899 through 1909, the company published sixteen novels whose exceptionally large sales placed each of them among the nation's top ten best-selling books of the year for one or more years.
The company was plaintiff in Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus, 210 U.S. 339 (1908), a case regarded as the origin of copyright's First Sale Doctrine.
In 1959, The Howard W. Sams Company purchased Bobbs-Merrill. When Sams was acquired by Macmillan in 1985, the Bobbs-Merrill name ceased being used with the exception of continued sales of the Fifth Revision of The Joy of Cooking, which continued to be a steady seller for Macmillan, as well as selected College Division titles such as the Library of Liberal Arts.
[edit] Sources
- Jack O'Bar, The Origins and History of the Bobbs-Merrill Company, Occasional Papers, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Publications Office, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1985).
