HarperCollins has announced plans to “commemorate the 250th anniversary of American independence” with its new American Classics series, to be published next spring.
Comprising seminal works of American adult and children’s literature, as well as some poetry, the series will feature 35 special-edition trade paperbacks of some of the most influential titles HC has put out since its 1817 founding, including Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Zora Neal Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, and E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web. The entire series is set to be published on May 5, 2026.
“From our 50-year relationship with ‘the father of American literature,’ Mark Twain, to our more than three-decade collaboration with Pulitzer Prize–winning author Barbara Kingsolver, no American publisher has been so deeply woven into the fabric of American literature as HarperCollins,” said HC president and CEO Brian Murray in a statement. “This series not only commemorates the tireless work of our authors, employees, and partners over the years, but also celebrates a literary legacy 200 years in the making.”
Winnowing HC’s 200-plus year catalog to a couple dozen titles was no easy feat, according to Harper Perennial associate publisher Amy Baker, who helped spearhead the series.
Baker said the team behind the project, which included staff from across HC’s adult and children’s divisions, first had individual imprints nominate works from their catalogs. Then, they “worked back and forth with sales to “come up with the list we thought was most representative of the history, as well as brought in contemporary voices,” she added.
HC’s vast backlist did not keep them from involving some of their modern classics in the fray. Contemporary works on the American Classics list include South to America, Imani Perry’s 2022 National Book Award–winning work of nonfiction, and Angie Thomas’s 2017 YA novel The Hate U Give.
Baker’s imprint also publishes its own Modern Classics series, but American Classics will be the first series from HC to focus explicitly on American literature.
While Baker and her colleagues were conscious of diversity when curating the list, the HC authors who have interjected on the American literary canon turned out to be a naturally diverse group, Baker said, including the Pulitzer winners Gwendolyn Brooks, Louise Erdrich, and N. Scott Momaday.
The list, Baker said, is “truly is a reflection of the books we’ve published.”
HC will launch a publicity and marketing campaign for the series as the semiquincentennial approaches, according to the announcement.
