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E. P. Dutton & Company
Image Not Available for E. P. Dutton & Company

E. P. Dutton & Company

American, founded 1852
BiographyE. P. Dutton was an American book publishing company founded as a book retailer in Boston, Massachusetts in 1852 by Edward Payson Dutton. In 1986, the company was acquired by Penguin Group and split into two imprints: Dutton and Dutton Children's Books.

Edward Payson Dutton founded a book-selling firm in Boston, in 1852 the eponymous E. P. Dutton, but it wasn't until 1864 when a branch office was set up in New York, that the company began to publish books. Its original focus was on religious titles, and the first bestseller was the two-volume Life of Christ by Frederic Farrar, published in 1874.

1885, John Macrae began working at Dutton as an office boy; he would spend fifty-nine years with the company rising in the ranks. He became President in 1923, and in 1928 he bought the publishing house and shared it with his two sons. During his tenure, E. P. Dutton published notable books such as The Proper Bostonians by Cleveland Amory, Marchette Chute's Shakespeare of London, Pipiolo and the Roof Dogs by Brian Meunier, The Conquest of Everest by John Hunt, Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan, as well as works by Lawrence Durrell, Milton Glaser, and Luigi Pirandello. The company also went on to publish books by John Irving (The World According to Garp), Peter Matthiessen, Jorge Luis Borges, Gavin Maxwell, Joyce Carol Oates, Gail Sheehy (Passages), and Mickey Spillane.

Dutton Children's Books is one of the oldest continually operating children's book publishers in the United States whose books include the Winnie-the-Pooh stories.

E.P. Dutton ceased to exist as an independent company in 1986, when Penguin Viking (now Penguin Group USA) acquired the company, splitting into both imprints: Dutton and Dutton Children's Books.

A century and a half after Dutton sold its first book, the publishing house has maintained its ability to get great books into the hands of many readers. In 2006 and 2007 one in every four books published by Dutton hit the New York Times bestseller list. With an eye toward a focused list of titles, Dutton currently publishes 45 hardcovers a year, roughly half fiction and half non-fiction. Dutton is currently home to many #1 New York Times bestselling authors.
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