Random House
Random House is a
publishing division of the German media conglomerate
Bertelsmann based in
New York City. It was founded in
1927 by
Bennett Cerf and
Donald Klopfer, two years after they had acquired the
Modern Library imprint. Cerf is quoted as saying, "We just said we were going to publish a few books on the side at random," which suggested the name Random House. Bertelsmann acquired it in 1998.
Its U.S. imprints currently include the Bantam Dell Publishing Group, the
Crown Publishing Group, the
Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, the Knopf Publishing Group, the Random House Audio Publishing Group, the Random House Diversified Publishing Group, the Random House Information Group, the
Random House Ballantine Publishing Group, and Random House Ventures.
Del Rey Manga publishes
English manga in
North America. In the UK, The Random House Group Limited is comprised of four divisions with different publishing remits: Random House, Transworld, Ebury and Random House Children's Books. Its imprints include
Jonathan Cape, Harvill Secker,
Chatto and Windus, Vintage, Pimlico, Yellow Jersey, Century, Willian Heinemann, Hutchinson, Arrow, Random House Audio Books, Random House Business Books, Ebury Press, Vermilion, Rider, Bantam Press, Doubleday, Corgi, Black Swan, Fodor,
Time Out, WaterBrook Press and Mainstream. Tanoshimi publishes
English manga in
United KingdomRandom House entered reference publishing in 1947 with the
American College Dictionary, which was followed in 1966 by its first unabridged dictionary. It publishes today the
Random House Webster's Unabridged and
Random House Webster's College dictionaries, probably the main competitors for Merriam-Webster reference titles.
The distinguished
American publishers
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. and
Pantheon Books were acquired by Random House in
1960 and
1961, respectively; works continue to be published under these imprints with editorial independence. Random House has been the distributor for
Shambhala Publications since 1974. Within the last year, they have begun distributing Rizzoli Books, National Geographic Books, Steerforth Press, Wizards of the Coast, Vertical Books, Welcome Books, Taunton Press, New York Review of Books and Rugged Land.
The publisher's main U.S. office is located at 1745
Broadway in
Manhattan, in a 684-foot tower completed in 2003 and spanning the entire west side of the block between West 55th Street and west 56th. Its lobby showcases floor-to-ceiling glassed-in bookcases filled with books published by the company's many imprints.
One of its major competitors in
Germany is the
Holtzbrinck Group.
The company has a well-established reputation and thus has been mentioned in various creative works, including
Jason Robert Brown's
The Last Five Years.
The best known Random House author is perhaps
Dan Brown, author of the novel
Da Vinci Code, which is the 6th best selling book of all time.
*
Random House official website in Canada*
Random House official website in the U.S.*
Random House official website in the UK*
Random House official website for the Transworld division in the UK*
Random House Readers' Group site in the UK*
Randomhouse.com's history page*
Biography of Bennett Cerf with the quote on the origin of the Random House name
