Viking Press
Viking Press (formally Viking Penguin, also listed as Viking Books) is an American publishing company owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheimer and then acquired by the Penguin Group in 1975. The publisher's name and logo, a Viking ship drawn by Rockwell Kent, were chosen as symbols of enterprise, adventure, and exploration in publishing.
Also recorded as Viking Penguin · The Viking Press
Viking Press

Scott Bedbury · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Founded
- 1925
- Headquarters
- New York City
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Documentary summary
Viking Press (formally Viking Penguin, also listed as Viking Books) is an American publishing company owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheimer and then acquired by the Penguin Group in 1975. The publisher's name and logo, a Viking ship drawn by Rockwell Kent, were chosen as symbols of enterprise, adventure, and exploration in publishing.
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In this article
Overview
Overview
Sold to Penguin Books in 1975 for $12 million due to the publishing house's monetary difficulties. These were speculated to have been caused by the shrinkage in the juvenile market and Viking Press' lack of a textbook division.

An ad for the book Three Poems (1972) by John Ashbery. Published in the June 1972 issue of the American literary magazine Poetry. The ad features a black-and-white photo portrait of the author, along with this blurb: " Poems in prose': prose poetry If you read contemporary poetry, you've read John Ashbery. But you've never read him as he presents himself in Three Poems. To state it simply, he h
Photo by Gustavo Hoffman · "Prufrock, Adamantine Stupidity, Tennessee Williams, and Latin American Modernists" at poetryfoundation.org (direct link to jpg)

John Clive Nicolas Head Ark 1985
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Key facts
Key facts
• Parent — Penguin Random House • Status — Active • Founders — Harold K. Guinzburg George Oppenheimer • Country — United States • Headquarters — New York City • Keypeople — Brian Tart (president) Kenneth Wright (Children's publisher) • Imprints — * Viking Kestrel • Viking Adult • Viking Children's Books • Viking Portable Library
Imprints
Imprints
• Viking Kestrel • Viking Adult • Viking Children's Books • Viking Portable Library • Pamela Dorman Books
Viking Children's
Viking Children's
In 1933, Viking Press founded a department called Junior Books to publish children's books. The first book published was The Story About Ping in 1933 under editor May Massee. Junior Books was later renamed Viking Children's Books. Viking Kestrel was one of its imprints. Its books have won the Newbery and Caldecott Medals, and include such books as The Twenty-One Balloons, written and illustrated by William Pene du Bois (1947, Newbery medal winner for 1948), Corduroy, Make Way for Ducklings, The Stinky Cheese Man by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith (1993), The Outsiders, Pippi Longstocking, and The Story of Ferdinand. Its paperbacks are now published by Puffin Books, which includes the Speak and Firebird imprints. In 2023, Tamar Brazis was named v-p and publisher of Viking Children's Books.
Viking Critical Library
Viking Critical Library
The Viking Critical Library offers academic editions of literary texts. Like W. W. Norton's Norton Critical Editions, all titles print the text alongside a selection of critical essays and contextual documents (including relevant extracts from the author's oeuvre). The series, which only saw sporadic publications in the late 1970s and late 1990s, has been dormant since 1998, with no new titles released since then. However, a number of existing titles remain in print. • Titles • Author — Title — Editor — Year published — Notes • Don DeLillo — White Noise — Mark Osteen — 1998 —. • Graham Greene — The Quiet American — John Clark Pratt — 1996 • James Joyce — Dubliners — Robert Scholes — 1996 • James Joyce — Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man — Chester G. Anderson — 1977 — The only title known to include explanatory end notes. • Ken Kesey — One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest — John Clark Pratt — 1977 — Out of print. • Jack Kerouac — On the Road — Scott Donaldson — 1979 — Out of print. • Arthur Miller — The Crucible — Gerald Weales — 1996 • Arthur Miller — Death of a Salesman — Gerald Weales — 1996 • John Steinbeck — The Grapes of Wrath — Kevin Hearle — 1997
Notable authors
Notable editors
Notable editors
• Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, consulting editor • Wendy Wolf, vice president and associate editor, as of 1994
Institutional history
Dated record
Institutional history
The full dated record · 2 entries
1925
Viking Press established.
1925
Viking Press is recorded from 1925.
Awards
• 10 Newbery Medals • 10 Caldecott Medals • 27 Newbery Honors • 33 Caldecott Honors • 1 American Book Award • 2 Coretta Scott King Awards • 3 Batcheldor Honors • 5 Christopher Medals • 2 Margaret A. Edwards Awards for authors S. E. Hinton and Richard Peck
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Yale University Press. The Encyclopedia of New York City: Second Edition. 1995. 978-0300055368.
- 2.Egli. Viking Press Is Sold To Penguin Books. School Library Journal. Media Source Inc. 22. 4. 16. 1975.
- 3.Whitman, Alden. Viking Press Is Sold to Penguin Books. The New York Times. November 11, 1975.
- 4.Kantor, Emma. Brazis, Santopolo promoted at Penguin Young Readers. Publishers Weekly.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 2
- Bean, Martha Sue. A History and Profile of the Viking Press, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Theses, 1969.
- "Viking Press, Viking Penguin", Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 46, pp. 365-368.
References
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References
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The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
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