Former type Private Fate Acquired Founder Edward Payson Dutton Defunct 1986 | Industry Publishing Area served United States Founded 1852 Parent organization Penguin Books | |
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E. P. Dutton was an American book publishing company founded as a book retailer in Boston, Massachusetts in 1852 by Edward Payson Dutton.
In 1864, Dutton expanded to New York City, where they began publishing religious books. In 1906, Dutton made a deal with English publishing company J. M. Dent to be the American distributor of the Everyman's Library series of classic literature reprints. John Macrae joined the company in 1885 as an office boy and in 1923 was named president. In 1928, the publishing and retail divisions were split into two separate businesses with Macrae acquiring the publishing side, operating as E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc. At one point it published children's books under the Unicorn imprint.
In 1986, the company was acquired by Penguin Group and split into two imprints: Dutton and Dutton Children's Books. Dutton is now a boutique imprint within Penguin Group, publishing approximately 40 books per year, half fiction and half non-fiction. After the acquisition by Penguin, books that Penguin acquired the rights to as part of the acquisition of Dutton were published in paperback under the imprint Puffin Unicorn (because Puffin has been the longtime paperback imprint for the Penguin Group).