Grosset & Dunlap
Yes, Virginia, there really are (or we should say, were) a Mr. Grosset and a Mr. Dunlap, who started their own publishing company in 1898 after the two gentlemen were left jobless by the demise of the American Publishers Corporation.
Grosset & Dunlap’s first initiative was rebinding and selling popular novels of the day at fifty cents a copy, and then, with the purchase of the renowned Stratemeyer Syndicate (currently owned by Simon & Schuster), publishing Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, the Bobbsey Twins, and other tremendously successful children's series. These were probably the first mass-market series for children, and the books are still widely purchased and read by young people today.
Grosset & Dunlap was in the forefront of publishing books derived from what Mr. Dunlap referred to as "the moving picture," and today Grosset still publishes movie tie-in titles. In the 1960s picture books by well-known artist Gyo Fujikawa broke new ground, being among the first to show babies and small children of different races. The acquisition of Platt and Munk in 1977 brought to the house an icon of American culture, The Little Engine That Could. And from that single title, the little blue engine has developed into a program of mass market books in a variety of formats - cloth, lift-the-flaps, pop-ups, board books, and more.
In 1982, Grosset & Dunlap was bought by G. P. Putnam's Sons (later known as The Putnam Berkley Group), which merged with Penguin USA in 1996. One of several imprints among Penguin Young Readers Group, Grosset remains a mass-market publisher of children's books, issuing approximately 160 new titles a year.
Since the 1940s, Grosset has published the Illustrated Junior Library, a collection of hardcover editions of Little Women, Tom Sawyer, and more than twenty other classics.
Grosset & Dunlap now focuses on licensing properties, original paperback series and capitalizing on successful in-house brands such as Corduroy and Eric Carle. Grosset's many book lines include the All Aboard Reading series of leveled paperback readers, 8x8 paperback storybooks (including the bestselling The Night Before Kindergarden), and sticker storybooks.
