The Ballantine Publishing Group, better known as Ballantine Books, is a major American book publisher founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a pair of mirrored letter "B"'s back to back.
Following Fawcett Publications' controversial 1950 introduction of Gold Medal paperback originals rather than reprints, Lion Books, Avon and Ace also began to do repr...
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The Ballantine Publishing Group, better known as Ballantine Books, is a major American book publisher founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a pair of mirrored letter "B"'s back to back.
Following Fawcett Publications' controversial 1950 introduction of Gold Medal paperback originals rather than reprints, Lion Books, Avon and Ace also began to do reprints. Then, in 1952, Ian Ballantine announced that he would "offer trade publishers a plan for simultaneous publishing of original titles in two editions, a hardcover 'regular' edition for bookstore sale, and a paper-cover, 'newsstand' size, low-priced edition for mass market sale."
The first Ballantine Book was Cameron Hawley's Executive Suite, published in 1952. The publishing industry sat up and took notice, because the simultaneous hardcover and paperback editions were obvious successes. Houghton Mifflin published the $3.00 hardcover at...
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