Newly launched Legacy Editions is a celebration of Harper Perennial's rich literary past: the line features public domain titles, all of which were originally published in the United States by Harper & Brothers. "This is our campaign to republish, and reengage with, some of the books and authors who were part of our earliest history," said Cal Morgan, senior v-p and editorial director.
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While Harper was the initial American publisher of Moby Dick, Jane Eyre and other eminent classics, Legacy Editions showcases numerous books that were very significant in their own time but are lesser known today. The inaugural titles are The Linwoods by Catharine Maria Sedgwick (1835) and John Halifax, Gentleman by Dinah Maria Mulock (1857). Each novel features an introduction by a contemporary writer, Margot Livesey for the former and Simon Van Booy for the latter.
In The Linwoods, Sedgwick, one of the country's most widely read authors from the 1820s through the 1850s, illuminates issues of civic virtue and national identity in the early American republic through the lives of two families: the Linwoods, dutiful loyalists, and the Lees, passionate revolutionaries.
The title character in John Halifax, Gentleman is an orphan determined to raise himself up through honest hard work in England's Industrial Revolution. Mulock explores the sweeping transformation wrought by this revolutionary technological age, including the rise of the middle class and its impact on the social, economic and political makeup of the nation as it moved from the 18th to the 19th century.
"These are books that can be read for their own native pleasures, but that also remind us how wide-ranging and politically engaged the women writers of that time were," said Morgan.
These revived classics can easily be shelved and handsold alongside Pride and Prejudice, The Scarlet Letter and Great Expectations, broadening the scope of readily available 19th-century literature. "We hope booksellers and librarians come to these titles with the same sense of discovery that we have," said Morgan. The goal is "to help readers discover more of the important, yet often underappreciated," historic books.
Each Legacy Editions title features a lush design and French flaps. The line will be published through 2017, when the company marks another milestone: the 200th anniversary of HarperCollins, which was founded as J & J Harper in 1817.