From http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/faq/

Houghton Mifflin Company traces its roots to 1832, when William Ticknor and James Fields joined forces as publishers and booksellers. Their Boston shop, the Old Corner Bookstore, became a meeting place for the most influential American writers of the nineteenth century. This was a golden era in American letters, and the firm of Ticknor & Fields published Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, John Greenleaf Whittier, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. When Ticknor died, James Osgood took over the company, and in the late 1870s this organization merged with that of Henry Houghton (who had established the Riverside Press in 1852), becoming Houghton, Mifflin & Company in 1880. Houghton Mifflin became a public company in 1967 and a part of Vivendi Universal Publishing in 2001.

Today the Trade and Reference Division of Houghton Mifflin publishes approximately four hundred books a year, including adult trade books, Mariner trade paperbacks, the American Heritage® dictionaries, Peterson Field Guides®, Taylor Guides, Kingfisher Books, the Best American Series, Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, Walter Lorraine Books, and Clarion Books.

The adult trade group publishes fiction and nonfiction of the highest quality, intended for a general audience. As part of a major educational publisher, we are dedicated to publishing works that will become a part of the canon taught in schools and colleges in the future. Our list builds on the traditional strengths for which Houghton Mifflin has won its reputation as one of the most prestigious houses in the industry. In nonfiction, the roster includes the finest writers in such categories as history, natural history, biography and memoir, science, and economics, including such preeminent figures as Winston Churchill, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and John Kenneth Galbraith. We also have a proud tradition of publishing works of social criticism that have spoken with great power through the generations, including Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, James Agee and Walker Evans's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, the works of Jane Goodall, and, recently, the best-selling Constantine's Sword by James Carroll and Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. Watch for forthcoming books by Garry Wills, Paul Fussell, and John Horgan on our fall 2002 list.

On the literary side, Houghton Mifflin launched the careers of such writers as Willa Cather, A. B. Guthrie, Jr., Robert Penn Warren, Ann Petry, Elizabeth Bishop, Philip Roth, Willie Morris, and Robert Stone. Our fiction list today also includes such distinguished names as Tim O'Brien, John Edgar Wideman, Edna O'Brien and Paul Theroux.

Houghton Mifflin's commitment to poetry also spans well over one hundred years. Our current roster of poets includes Galway Kinnell, Donald Hall, Grace Schulman, Alan Shapiro, Michael Collier, and Glyn Maxwell, among others.

Recently the adult group has rededicated itself to publishing veteran writers of the greatest stature and discovering the most promising emerging voices. The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has been awarded to Houghton Mifflin authors twice in the past few years: in 1998 to Philip Roth for American Pastoral and in 2000 to Jhumpa Lahiri for her first book, Interpreter of Maladies. In 1996 the National Book Award was given to James Carroll for his memoir An America Requiem. In 1997 the National Book Critics Circle Award went to Penelope Fitzgerald's acclaimed novel The Blue Flower. In recent years our books have also won such major awards as the PEN/Faulkner Award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Lyndhurst Prize, and the Bancroft Prize in American History and Diplomacy.

Houghton Mifflin Company began publishing books for young readers in 1937 with a list of four titles, including Choo Choo by Virginia Lee Burton. Houghton Mifflin Children's Books now publishes more than one hundred titles each year, and we are frequently lauded for the depth of our backlist and recognized for encouraging and cultivating new talent. Our list consists of some of the most recognized creators in the field of children's literature, including H. A. and Margret Rey, Caldecott medalist Virginia Lee Burton, Bill Peet, Holling C. Holling, Newbery medalist Elizabeth George Speare, Newbery medalist Scott O'Dell, James Marshall, Caldecott medalist Chris Van Allsburg, and many other award-winning authors and illustrators. Houghton Mifflin authors and illustrators have created some of the best-loved characters in children's literature, including the incorrigible Curious George, Lyle the Crocodile, George and Martha, Mike Mulligan and his trusty steam shovel, MaryAnne, and Tacky the Penguin. Over the years, Houghton Mifflin Children's Books authors have been awarded eight Caldecott Medals, eleven Caldecott Honors, seven Newbery Medals, and eleven Newbery Honors, among many other accolades. Walter Lorraine Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Company, was formed in 1995. In addition to developing new talent, Walter Lorraine Books publishes such award-winning authors and illustrators as Caldecott medalist David Macaulay, Caldecott medalist Allen Say, Newbery medalist Lois Lowry, Helen Lester, Lynn Munsinger, Arthur Geisert, Bernard Waber, Susan Meddaugh, and many others.

Clarion Books began publishing children's fiction and picture books in 1965 with a list of six titles. In 1979 it was bought by and became an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Company. Since then the list has expanded to nearly sixty titles a year and includes nonfiction as well as fiction and picture books. In 1987 Clarion received its first Newbery Honor Medal, for On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer, and in 1988 it had its first Newbery Medal winner, Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman. Since then Clarion books have received children's book honors and awards nearly every year. Clarion's award-winning titles include The Three Pigs (2002 Caldecott Medal), Tuesday (Caldecott Medal), and Sector 7 (Caldecott Honor), all written and illustrated by David Wiesner; A Single Shard (2002 Newbery Medal) by Linda Sue Park; The Midwife's Apprentice (Newbery Medal) and Catherine Called Birdy (Newbery Honor), both by Karen Cushman; Sir Walter Ralegh and the Quest for El Dorado (the inaugural Sibert Medal) by Marc Aronson; and My Rows and Piles of Coins (Coretta Scott King Honor for illustration) by Tololwa M. Mollel, illustrated by E. B. Lewis.

Kingfisher is an award-winning publisher of nonfiction and fiction for children of all ages. Known around the world for its informative and engaging reference books, activity books, and early learning books, Kingfisher also receives widespread acclaim for its classic anthologies for five-to-fourteen-year-olds and original picture books for very young children.