HarperCollins

HarperCollins is a publisher. The British division is HarperCollins UK, which describes itself as "part of HarperCollins Worldwide, one of the leading English-language book publishers in the world, with operations in the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia. It is a wholly-owned division of News Corporation, the media conglomerate and parent of Times Newspapers Ltd, British Sky Broadcasting and Twentieth Century Fox." It was formed as a result of various mergers and acquisitions in the 1980s, particularly between the long-established family-owned firm of William Collins Sons & Co of Glasgow, originally founded in 1819, and the New York company Harper & Row, successor to Harper and Brothers (founded 1817) and Row, Peterson & Company. Rupert Murdoch acquired both Collins and Harper & Row to form the great publishing house taking the name HarperCollins in 1991.