Panther Books Ltd was a British publishing house especially active in the 1950s and 1960s, specialising in paperback

Paperback

Paperback, softback or softcover describe and refer to a book by the nature of its binding. The covers of such books are usually made of paper or paperboard, and are usually held together with glue rather than stitches or staples...

 fiction

Fiction

Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...

. It was established in May 1952 by Hamilton's Ltd and titles carried the line "A Panther Book" or "Panther Science Fiction" on the cover. Science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 was one of the major genres published by Panther Books and titles included Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury

Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...

's The Golden Apples of the Sun

The Golden Apples of the Sun

The Golden Apples of the Sun is an anthology of 22 short stories by Ray Bradbury; it was first published in 1953.The book's namesake is one of the short stories in the collection. Bradbury drew the title for the story from the last line of the final stanza to W. B...

and Asimov

Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...

's Foundation Trilogy

The Foundation Series

The Foundation Series is a science fiction series by Isaac Asimov. There are seven volumes in the Foundation Series proper, which in its in-universe chronological order are: Prelude to Foundation, Forward the Foundation, Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation, Foundation's Edge, and...

. In 1954 Gordon Landsborough

Gordon Landsborough

Gordon Holmes Landsborough, , English publisher, author and bookseller, was in the forefront of change in the paperback publishing and bookselling industries in England during the 1950s to 1980s...

 was employed as editor and started improving the quality of the imprint. Instead of publishing original genre novels in paperback and hardback, Panther Books became a reprint publisher, doing paperback reprints of best-selling hardcover novels from other publishers. The quality of the cover art was improved and the list expanded to include non-fiction titles and fiction titles by internationally known, best-selling writers.

By at least April 1966, books published under the Panther name indicate that the business was based at 108 Brompton Road, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, S.W.5. However, records of the tumultuous process of mergers and acquisitions in the publishing industry show that by 1968, Granada Group Ltd had acquired a number of publishers who became subsidiary companies of Granada Publishing Ltd. These included, amongst others, Panther Books Ltd, and thus Panther Science Fiction became a Granada Imprint

Imprint

In the publishing industry, an imprint can mean several different things:* As a piece of bibliographic information about a book, it refers to the name and address of the book's publisher and its date of publication as given at the foot or on the verso of its title page.* It can mean a trade name...

.

In 1983, Granada sold the publishing side of its business to the Scottish publishers William Collins, Sons & Co, based in Glasgow.

In 1989, William Collins Sons & Co merged with the American Harper & Row  publishers, located in New York, to form HarperCollins

HarperCollins

HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...

, the British side of the company being managed through Harper Collins Publishers Ltd. Harper Collins Publishers continued to trade in 2003 with head offices at Bishopbriggs, Glasgow, employing circa 500 people.

Sources

• Records of Granada Publishing Ltd, Glasgow University Archives Service
• Records of William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, Glasgow University Archives Service