“Bennett Cerf started Random House in 1927, two years after he and Donald Klopfer acquired the Modern Library imprint that became the foundation for the new publishing venture. “We just said we were going to publish a few books on the side at random,” Cerf later said’”hence the name Random House. Under his leadership, Random House published James Joyce’s Ulysses in 1934, defying a ban, and created Beginner Books, which published Dr. Seuss and others. The publisher’s roster of adult writers included novelists Truman Capote, John O’Hara, Irwin Shaw, and James Michener, playwrights Eugene O’Neill and Moss Hart, and journalist Edgar Snow. When Cerf bought his friend Alfred A. Knopf’s publishing house in 1960, the deal was one of the industry’s first, and most successful, mergers.”
–From Columbia250, celebrating remarkable graduates of Columbia University.
This makes me so proud to be published by them. Their lobby is lined with glass cases that reach up to an incredibly high ceiling. They’re filled with their books, some from long ago, some recent. All amazing authors. My novel would be very happy to be sitting alongside those books, someday.
