New York, NY · Est. 1924 · Founded by Richard L. Simon & M. Lincoln Schuster
Richard Simon was a piano salesman. Max Schuster was editing a trade magazine. They met in 1921, became friends, and in 1924 each put in $3,000 to start a publishing house. Their first book came from a suggestion by Simon's aunt, who loved crossword puzzles and wanted more of them to work on. They packaged the book with a pencil. It sold out immediately. Simon & Schuster has been publishing some of the most important books in America ever since. Add the title that belongs on your shelf.
Richard Simon and Max Schuster met in 1921 -- Simon was selling pianos, Schuster was editing a trade publication -- and spent the next three years talking about starting a publishing company together. In April 1924 they each put in $3,000 and launched Simon & Schuster out of a single room in New York City. Their first book came from Simon's aunt, who loved working crossword puzzles and complained there weren't enough to keep up with. They published The Cross Word Puzzle Book, packaged each copy with a pencil, and printed 3,600 copies. It became a runaway bestseller and launched a national crossword craze.
From there the founders built one of the most commercially ambitious and culturally significant publishing houses in American history. Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy. Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. Rachel Carson. Ernest Hemingway. Pocket Books -- the first mass-market American paperback line, launched in 1939, which put quality literature in the hands of readers who couldn't afford hardcovers. A hundred years later Simon & Schuster is still one of the most storied names in American publishing, representing every genre from literary fiction to cookbooks, narrative nonfiction to design.
On a registry, a Simon & Schuster title is a century of that conviction -- that the right book, in the right hands, at the right moment, changes everything.
