Random House - Definition and Overview

Random House is a publishing division of Bertelsmann AG. It was founded in 1927 by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer, two years after they had acquired the Modern Library imprint. Cerf is quoted as saying "We just said we were going to publish a few books on the side at random," which suggested the name Random House.

Its imprints currently include the Bantam Dell Publishing Group, Chatto and Windus, the Crown Publishing Group, the Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, Ebury Press, the Knopf Publishing Group, the Random House Audio Publishing Group, Random House Children's Books, the Random House Diversified Publishing Group, the Random House Information Group, the Random House Ballantine Publishing Group, and Random House Ventures. It also has a division called Del Rey Manga, which publishes manga in English in North America

The distinguished American publishers Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. and Pantheon Books were acquired by Random House in 1960 and 1961, respectively; works continue to be published under these imprints with editorial independence.

One of its major competitors in Germany is the Holtzbrinck Group.

External link

• Randomhouse.com's history page (http://www.randomhouse.com/about/history.html)

• Biography of Bennet Cerf with the quote on the origin of the Random House name (http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/remarkable_columbians/bennett_alfred_cerf.html)