Bantam Books

For the U.K. publishing house, see Bantam Press.

Bantam Books
Parent companyRandom House
Founded1945; 79 years ago (1945)
Founder
Country of originUnited States
Headquarters locationNew York City, New York, U.S.
ImprintsSpectra
Skylark
Official websitewww.randomhousebooks.com/imprint/bantam-books/ Edit this at Wikidata

Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by parent company Random House, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin Jr., Sidney B. Kramer, and Ian and Betty Ballantine, with funding from Grosset & Dunlap and Curtis Publishing Company. It has since been purchased several times by companies including National General, Carl Lindner's American Financial and, most recently, Bertelsmann, which in 1986 purchased what had grown to become the Bantam Doubleday Dell publishing group. Bertelsmann purchased Random House in 1998, and in 1999 merged the Bantam and Dell imprints (amongst other mergers within the sprawling publishing house) to become the Bantam Dell publishing imprint. In 2010, the Bantam Dell division was consolidated with Ballantine Books (founded in 1952 by Bantam co-founders Ian and Betty Ballantine) to form the Ballantine Bantam Dell group within Random House.[1] By no later than February 2015, Bantam Books had re-emerged as a stand-alone imprint within Random House;[2] as of 2023, it continues to publish as the Bantam imprint, again grouped in a renamed Ballantine division within Random House.

Bantam began as a mass market publisher, mostly of reprints of hardcover books, with some original paperbacks as well. It expanded into both trade paperback and hardcover books, including original works, often reprinted in house as mass-market editions.

  1. ^ Cader, Michael (2010-04-13). "Ballantine and Bantam Dell Come Together Under McGuire". Publishers Lunch. Archived from the original on 2023-11-02. Retrieved 2023-11-07. consolidating the Ballantine and Bantam Dell lines into a new Ballantine Bantam Dell group. Libby McGuire will run the merged division as svp, publisher, and Bantam Dell evp
  2. ^ "Our Imprints". randomhousebooks.com. 2015-02-28. Archived from the original on 2015-02-28. Retrieved 2023-11-07.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)