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| Parent company | Random House (1961–2013) Penguin Random House (since 2013) |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1942; 83 years ago (1942) |
| Founder | Kurt Wolff & Helen Wolff,[1] Kyrill S. Schabert,[2] Jacques Schiffrin[3] |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Headquarters location | New York City |
| Key people | Dan Frank, Editorial Director, 1996–2021 |
| Publication types | Books |
| Official website | knopfdoubleday |
Pantheon Books is an American book publishing imprint. Founded in 1942 as an independent publishing house in New York City byKurt andHelen Wolff, it specialized in introducing progressive European works to American readers. In 1961, it was acquired byRandom House, andAndré Schiffrin was hired as executive editor, who continued to publish important works, by both European and American writers, until he was forced to resign in 1990 by Random House ownerSamuel Irving Newhouse, Jr. and president Alberto Vitale. Several editors resigned in protest, and multiple Pantheon authors includingStuds Terkel,Kurt Vonnegut, andBarbara Ehrenreich held a protest outside Random House. In 1998,Bertelsmann purchased Random House, and the imprint has undergone a number of corporate restructurings since then. It is now part of theKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group underPenguin Random House.[4]
Dan Frank was Editorial Director from 1996 until his death in May 2021.[5]Lisa Lucas joined the imprint in 2020 as Senior Vice President and Publisher.[6]
Pantheon Books was founded in 1942 in New York City by Helen andKurt Wolff who had come to the United States to escape fascism and the Holocaust.[7][8] Pantheon is currently part ofBertelsmann. Important early works published by Pantheon wereZen and the Art of Archery by German scholarEugen Herrigel, the Bollingen series (composed ofC. G. Jung's collected works in English and books of noted Jungian scholars), the first complete translation of theI Ching, andBoris Pasternak'sDoctor Zhivago.[7]
WhenRandom House boughtAlfred A. Knopf in 1960, the front page of theNew York Times reported that the merger "united two of the nation's most celebrated publishers of quality writing".[9] The following year, Random House would buy Pantheon, which would be moved into the Knopf Publishing Group. Also in 1961, Pantheon hiredAndré Schiffrin as executive editor of Pantheon Books.
Under the direction of Schiffrin, Pantheon continued to publish important works by European writers such asThe Tin Drum byGünter Grass, who would later receive a Nobel Prize for his work;Madness and Civilization byMichel Foucault,The Lover byMarguerite Duras, andAdieux bySimone de Beauvoir. By the late 1960s, Pantheon started to bring American writers such asNoam Chomsky,James Loewen andStuds Terkel to European readers.[7] In 1965,RCA bought Random House.[10] Throughout the 1970s, Pantheon continued to publish intellectual and often leftist works of fiction and nonfiction "without a profit-and-loss sheet in sight".[11] In other words, Pantheon editors prided themselves on subsidizing the cost of publishing less commercially successful (but socially or intellectually important) works with the profits from more commercially successful books.[7]
In 1980, RCA sold Random House toSamuel Irving Newhouse, Jr., and Pantheon Books came under pressure to increase profits.[7]
In December 1989,Alberto Vitale, a former banker, replaced Robert L. Berstein as chairman and president of Random House.[12] In February 1990, Schiffrin was "asked to resign after he refused to reduce the number of titles published [by Pantheon] or to trim Pantheon's 30-member staff".[13] In protest at Schiffrin's forced resignation and other changes in staffing, such as the hiring of Erroll McDonald, editors and staffTom Engelhardt, Wendy Wolf, Sara Bershtel, Jim Peck, Susan Rabiner, David Sternbach, Helena Franklin, Diane Wachtell, Gay Salisbury, and several others resigned in the following months.[12][13][14] Authors of books published by Pantheon, Random House, and other related imprints, includingStuds Terkel,Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Princeton historian Arno Mayer, andBarbara Ehrenreich, held a protest outside Random House in March 1990 during which they argued that the termination of Schiffrin amounted tocorporate censorship of the books that would not be printed without him.[13] NovelistE. L. Doctorow used his acceptance speech for a fiction prize at the March 1990 National Book Critics Circle award ceremony to criticize Random House for ousting Schiffrin.[15]
In the week following the protests, 40 Random House editors and publishers signed a statement that defended the personnel changes at Pantheon, stating: "like Pantheon, we abhor corporate censorship. We have never experienced it, nor do we believe that Pantheon has ever experienced it. We would not tolerate censorship of any form, and we are offended by any suggestion to the contrary. But, unlike Pantheon, we have preserved our independence and the independence of our authors by supporting the integrity of our publishing programs with fiscal responsibility".[16] Another supporter of Schiffrin's termination wrote that the protests and resignations were "a hilarious specimen of people intoxicated by self-importance. It also is a case study of the descent of intellectuals' leftism into burlesque".[17]
In 1998, Random House made news again when it was bought by Bertelsmann.Bertelsmann, the German company that also ownsBantam Books,Doubleday Publishing, andDell Publishing, acquiredRandom House in 1998, along with its imprints Pantheon Books,Modern Library,Times Books,Everyman's Library,Vintage Books,Crown Publishing Group,Schocken Books,Ballantine Books,Del Rey Books, andFawcett Publications,[18] making Bertelsmann the largest publisher of American books.
The Authors Guild approached the Fair Trade Commission, arguing that "the $1.4 billion acquisition of Random House by Bantam's parent, Bertelsmann AG, the German media conglomerate, would create a "new economic behemoth" with the potential to restrict readers' choices and authors' ability to market their works".[19] Bertelsmann was allowed to make the purchase, however, making it the largest publisher of English-language trade books. Again, Schiffrin protested, noting that in the eight years since Random House had come under the direction of Vitale, "Random House's 'high end'—the literary translations and books of criticism, cultural history and political analysis that had built the reputation of the Knopf and Pantheon imprints—were being sacrificed" and that concerns for the "bottom line" would outweigh intellectual and social concerns.[20]
Schiffrin published a memoir in 2000, in which he explains his side of the controversies surrounding Pantheon and Random House calledThe Business of Books: How International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read, in which he accused Vitale and those with money-making interests of homogenizing the publishing industry by focusing too much on profits, and warns: "the resulting control on the spread of ideas is stricter than anyone would have thought possible in a free society".[7] In a 2003 interview, former Pantheon editor Tom Engelhardt reflects on the Pantheon controversy in light of the acquisition by Bertelsmann: "Pantheon was a very specific place, publishing a very specific kind of book, and we felt that was being wiped out. As it turned out, what happened at Pantheon was the beginning of the gargantuan feasting on the independent publishing house and not-so-independent houses as well."[21]
Pantheon continues to publish well-respected fiction and non-fiction, and has more recently expanded further intographic novels. Pantheon re-issued books in the graphic-based "...For Beginners" series (originally published byWriters and Readers Cooperative) in the 1970s and 1980s; deciding to bring the series back in 2003.[22]
One of the first original graphic novels Pantheon published was the highly acclaimedMaus: A Survivor's Tale byArt Spiegelman in 1986. Spiegelman has become somewhat of a comics consultant, advising editor-in-chief Dan Frank.[23] Another key member of the Pantheon Graphic Novels team is graphic designerChip Kidd.[24]
Recently Pantheon has moved aggressively into thecomics market. In 2000, Pantheon publishedThe Acme Novelty Library byChris Ware.[23] In 2005, Pantheon publishedThe Rabbi's Cat, a graphic novel byJoann Sfar that "tells the wholly unique story of a rabbi, his daughter, and their talking cat".[25] Notable cartoonists whose graphic novels have been published by Pantheon include Spiegelman, Ware,Dan Clowes,Charles Burns,Ben Katchor,Marjane Satrapi, andDavid Mazzucchelli.
It has published many critically acclaimedgraphic novels and comics collections, includingIce Haven,La Perdida,Read Yourself RAW,Maus,In the Shadow of No Towers, andBlack Hole. Many of its comics publications are high-qualitycollected editions of works originallyserialized by other publishers such asFantagraphics Books.
In early 2009, long-time Pantheon publisher Janice Goldklang was laid off as part of a general restructuring of Random House and its publishing divisions.[26]
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