Pearson Longman

Parent company	Pearson Education
Founded	1724; 301 years ago (1724)
Founder	Thomas Longman
Successor	Pearson plc
Country of origin	England
Headquarters location	Harlow
Publication types	Reference works,textbooks
Imprints	Pearson Longman
Official website	www.pearsonelt.com

Longman, also known asPearson Longman, is apublishing company founded in 1724 in London, England, which is owned byPearson PLC.

Since 1968, Longman has been used primarily as an imprint by Pearson's Schools business. The Longman brand is also used for the Longman Schools in China and theLongman Dictionary.

The Longman company was founded byThomas Longman (1699 – 18 June 1755), the son of Ezekiel Longman (died 1708), a gentleman ofBristol. Thomas was apprenticed in 1716 to John Osborn, a London bookseller, and at the expiration of his apprenticeship married Osborn's daughter. In August 1724, he purchased the stock and household goods ofWilliam Taylor, the first publisher ofRobinson Crusoe, for£2282 9s 6d. Taylor's two shops inPaternoster Row, London, were known respectively as theBlack Swan and theShip,^[1] premises at that time having signs rather than numbers, and became the publishing house premises.^{[citation needed]}

Longman entered into partnership with his father-in-law, Osborn, who held one-sixth of the shares inEphraim Chambers'sCyclopaedia (1728). Longman himself was one of the six booksellers, who undertook the responsibility ofSamuel Johnson'sDictionary (1746–1755).^[1]

In 1754, Longman took into partnership his nephew, Thomas Longman (1730–1797), and the title of the firm became T. and T. Longman. Upon the death of his uncle in 1755, Longman became sole proprietor. He greatly extended the colonial trade of the firm. In 1794, he took Owen Rees as a partner;^[1][2] in the same year, Thomas Brown (c. 1777–1869) entered the house as an apprentice.^[1]

Longman had three sons. Of these,Thomas Norton Longman (1771–1842) succeeded to the business. In 1804, two more partners, including Edward Orme & Thomas Hurst, were admitted, and the former apprentice Brown became a partner in 1811; in 1824, the title of the firm was changed to 'Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green'. A document of 1823 "Grant of Land in the Concan" printed by the firm under this name shows the name change was from 1823 or earlier.

In 1799, Longman purchased the copyright ofLindley Murray'sEnglish Grammar, which had an annual sale of about50000 copies.^[1] In the following year,Richmal Mangnall'sHistorical and Miscellaneous Questions for the Use of Young People was purchased, and went through 84 editions by 1857.^[3] About 1800 he also purchased the copyright ofSouthey'sJoan of Arc andWordsworth'sLyrical Ballads, from Joseph Cottle of Bristol. He published the works of Wordsworth,Coleridge, Southey andScott, and acted as London agent for theEdinburgh Review, which was started in 1802.^[1] In 1802 appeared the first part ofRees's Cyclopædia, edited byAbraham Rees. This was completed in 39 volumes plus 6 volumes of plates in 1819.^[4]

In 1814 arrangements were made withThomas Moore for the publication ofLaila Rookh, for which he was paid £3000; and whenArchibald Constable failed in 1826, Longmans became the proprietors of theEdinburgh Review. They issued in 1829Lardner'sCabinet Encyclopaedia, and in 1832McCulloch'sCommercial Dictionary.^[1]

Thomas Norton Longman died on 29 August 1842, leaving his two sons,Thomas (1804–1879) and William (1813–1877), in control of the business in Paternoster Row. Their first success was the publication ofMacaulay'sLays of Ancient Rome, which was followed in 1841 by the issue of the first two volumes of hisHistory of England, which after a few years had a sale of40000 copies.^[1]

The two brothers were well known for their literary talent. Thomas Longman edited a beautifully illustrated edition of theNew Testament, and William Longman was the author of several important books, among them aHistory of the Three Cathedrals dedicated to St Paul (1869) and a work on theHistory of the Life and Times ofEdward III (1873). In 1863, the firm took over the business ofJohn William Parker, and with itFraser's Magazine, and the publication of the works ofJohn Stuart Mill andJames Anthony Froude; while in 1890 they incorporated with their own all the publications of the old firm ofRivington, established in 1711.^[5] The family control of the firm (later 'Longmans, Green & Co.') was continued by Thomas Norton Longman, son of Thomas Longman.^[1] In 1884 the firm employed John William Allen as an educationalist. Allen grew the firm's educational list, including textbooks he wrote himself. He later inherited the shares of W. E. Green and became a shareholder in 1918.

This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Longman" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(January 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

In December 1940, Longman's Paternoster Row offices were destroyed^[6] inThe Blitz, along with most of the company's stock. The company survived this crisis, however, and became a public company in 1948.^[7] Longman was acquired by the global publisherPearson, owner ofPenguin andThe Financial Times, in 1968. Longman's medical lists was merged with other Pearson subsidiaries to formChurchill Livingstone in 1972. Also in 1972, Mark Longman, last of the Longman family to run the company, died.^[8]

Longman continued to exist as an imprint ofPearson, under the name 'Pearson Longman'. Pearson Longman specialized in English, includingEnglish as a second or foreign language, history, economics, philosophy, political science, and religion.

Longman is now primarily used by Pearson's ELT business (English Language Teaching). The Longman brand is now only used for the Longman Schools in China and oddments such as theLongman Dictionary andKennedy's Revised Latin Primer. All other textbooks and products use the Pearson brand/imprint.

Longman imprints:^[9]

• Express Publishing
• Macmillan Publishers
• Oxford University Press

• Briggs, A. (2008). "Appendix 2".A history of Longmans and their books. London: British Library.
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911)."Rivington, Charles" .Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 387.
• Gordon, Alexander (1896)."Rees, Thomas (1777–1864) § Owen" . InLee, Sidney (ed.).Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 47. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 402.
• Treasure, Geoffrey (1997).Who's Who in Late Hanoverian Britain (2nd ed.). London: Shepheard-Walwyn.ISBN 978-0-85683-137-9. Archived fromthe original on 13 October 2018. Retrieved15 January 2015.

Attribution:

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Longmans".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 984–985.

• Briggs, Asa (26 May 2005). "Longman family".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/72356. (Subscription orUK public library membership required.)

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• Official website of Longman USA
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• Longman family (1724–1972) byAsa Briggs at theOxford Dictionary of National Biography

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