The Heritage Press
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Heritage Press was an imprint of George Macy Companies, Ltd., from 1937 to 1982. The Heritage Press reprinted classic volumes previously published by the more exclusive Limited Editions Club.
Today, Heritage Press books can still be found at used bookstores.
History
In 1929, George Macy founded the Limited Editions Club and began publishing illustrated books in limited numbers (usually 1500 copies) for subscription members. In 1935 Macy founded the Heritage Club, which together with the Heritage Press, created and distributed more affordable and unlimited reprints of the great books previously published by The Limited Editions Club.
Macy was involved personally in the work of the Press, designing many of its publications, including The Grapes of Wrath, The Decameron, Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales, and A Shropshire Lad.
He also authored The Collected Verses of George Jester (distributed in a limited number as a Macy family holiday greeting) and edited Heritage's A Sailor's Reader and A Soldier's Reader, which were wartime volumes, published in August 1943, of "four hundred thousand words of literary entertainment" for members of the American armed services.
Macy also acquired and operated another press publishing limited editions. In 1936, he became managing director of the Nonesuch Press of London, originally founded by Francis Meynell.
Publications
Publications of the Heritage Press covered a broad range of topics, primarily within the Western canon. Examples included editions of Bulfinch's Age of Fable, Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, Spenser's The Faerie Queene, and Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. A particularly large and ornate edition includes the complete scripts to all of Gilbert and Sullivan's operas, with an accompanying envelope containing facsimile memorabilia.
See also
