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| Parent company | Random House |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1921; 104 years ago (1921) |
| Founder | George T. Delacorte Jr. |
| Defunct | 1976  |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Headquarters location | New York City |
| Publication types | Books |
| Imprints | Dial, Delacorte, Laurel Leaf, Yearling |
| Official website | randomhousebooks.com/dell-delacorte-books |
Dell Publishing Company, Inc. is an American publisher ofbooks,magazines andcomic books, that was founded in 1921 byGeorge T. Delacorte Jr. with $10,000 (approx. $145,000 in 2021), two employees and one magazine title,I Confess, and soon began turning out dozens ofpulp magazines, which included penny-a-worddetective stories, articles about films, andromance books (or "smoochies" as they were known in the slang of the day).
During the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, Dell was one of the largest publishers of magazines, includingpulp magazines. Their line of humor magazines included1000 Jokes, launched in 1938. From 1929 to 1974, they published comics under theDell Comics line, the bulk of which (1938–62) was done in partnership withWestern Publishing. In 1943, Dell entered intopaperback book publishing withDell Paperbacks. They also used the bookimprints ofDial Press,Delacorte Books,Delacorte Press,Yearling Books, andLaurel Leaf Library.
Dell was acquired byDoubleday in 1976, which was itself acquired byBertelsmann in 1986. Bertelsmann later consolidated Dell with other imprints intoRandom House.
Dell's earliest venture into paperback publishing began because of its close association withWestern Publishing. William Lyles wrote, "Dell needed paper, which Western had in 1942, and because Western by this time needed printing work, which Dell could supply in the form of its new paperback line. So Dell Books[1] was born, created by Delacorte of Dell and Lloyd E. Smith of Western."[2]
Dell began publishing paperbacks in 1942 at a time when mass-market paperbacks were a relatively new idea for the United States market—its principal competitor,Pocket Books, had only been publishing since 1939. An examination[whose?] of paperback books available at this time shows no consensus on standardization of any feature; each early company was attempting to distinguish itself from its competitors. Lyles commented, "Dell achieved more variety than any of its early competitors. It did so, at first, with an instantly identifiable format of vibrant airbrushed covers for its predominantly genre fiction, varying 'eye-in-keyhole' logos,maps on the back covers, lists of the books' characters, and 'tantalizer-pages'. The design was merchandising genius; it successfully attracted buyers, it sold books."[2]
The first four books did not feature maps on the back cover; this began with Dell #5,Four Frightened Women byGeorge Harmon Coxe. (A later re-issue of Dell #4,The American Gun Mystery byEllery Queen, added a map.) The map was meant as an aid to the reader, to show the location of the principal activity of the novel. Some were incredibly detailed; others somewhat stylized and abstract. The books were almost immediately known as "mapbacks", and that nomenclature has lasted among collectors to this day.[3] The maps were "delicate and detailed".[4]
The novels in the mapback series were primarily mysteries/detective fiction but ran the gamut from romances (Self-Made Woman byFaith Baldwin, #163) to science fiction (The First Men in the Moon byH. G. Wells, #201), war books (I Was a Nazi Flyer by Gottfried Leske, #21 andEisenhower Was My Boss byKay Summersby, #286), many Westerns (Gunsmoke and Trail Dust by Bliss Lomax, #271), joke books (Liberty Laughs, Cavanah & Weir, #38) and even crossword puzzles (Second Dell Book of Crossword Puzzles, ed. Kathleen Rafferty, #278, one of the rarest titles today). There were a few movie tie-in editions (The Harvey Girls bySamuel Hopkins Adams, #130, andRope as byAlfred Hitchcock, #262) and the occasional attempt at more artistic non-genre fiction (To a God Unknown byJohn Steinbeck, #407). Novels which are today long forgotten, by largely unknown authors (Death Wears a White Gardenia, byZelda Popkin, #13) are in the same series as valuable original paperback editions of famous authors (A Man Called Spade, byDashiell Hammett, #90). "The back cover map was very popular with readers and remains popular with collectors... the Dell 'mapbacks' are among the most well-known vintage paperbacks."[3]
In the early 1950s, as series numbering reached the 400s, Dell began updating the appearance of its books. In 1951, the back cover maps began to be gradually replaced with conventional text and "blurb" covers.[3] Some later, more stylized maps were the product ofMilton Glaser andPush Pin Studios. These innovations were brought in by editor-in-chief Frank Taylor. He introduced classics in paperback form under the umbrella imprint "Laurel Editions"[5] which included the LaurelHenry James series and the Laurel Poetry Series, the latter edited by the distinguished poetRichard Wilbur. In the early 1960s the Dell Purse Book series of pocket-sized information books on a wide range of topics was launched.[6]
Dell was also the publisher of the paperback novel seriesTwilight: Where Darkness Begins between 1982 and 1987.
At about this time, Dell launched two short-lived experiments which are also considered very collectible, Dell First Editions and Dell Ten Cent Books. The Ten Cent Books, 36 in all, were thin, paperback-sized editions containing a single short story told in only 64 pages (advertised as "too short for popular reprint at a higher price"), such asRobert A. Heinlein'sUniverse (1951).
Dell First Editions included novels byJohn D. MacDonald,Fredric Brown,Jim Thompson,Elmore Leonard andCharles Williams.
In 1947, Dell published two unnumbered paperbacks based on newspapercomic strips,Blondie and Dagwood in Footlight Folly andDick Tracy and the Woo Woo Sisters. Both are popular with collectors today.[3]
Dell Publishing no longer exists as an independent entity. Dell was acquired byDoubleday in 1976.[7] Doubleday was acquired byBertelsmann in 1986, who formedBantam Doubleday Dell as its US subsidiary.[8] Bertelsmann acquiredRandom House in 1998 and renamed its US business after the acquisition.[9] After the merger, Bantam was merged with Dell Publishing.[10] In 2001, Random House purchased Golden Books' book publishing properties[11] effectively reuniting the remnants of Dell andWestern Publishing. Bantam Dell became part of the Random House publishing group in 2008.[12]Ballantine Books was merged with Bantam Dell in 2010.[13] In 2013, Random House merged with Penguin to formPenguin Random House.[14]
Dell Magazines was sold in 1996 toPenny Publications,[15] and it still exists as a major publisher of puzzle magazines, also publishing science fiction, mystery and horoscope magazines.
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