Viking Press


Viking Press 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.
Viking Press was 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.

Imprints

  • Viking Kestrel
  • Viking Adult, who got in legal trouble in 1946 due to John Steinbeck's bold eulogy, and fell out of public favor in 1947
  • Viking Children's Books
  • Viking Portable Library
  • Pamela Dorman Books

    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, Corduroy, Make Way for Ducklings, The Stinky Cheese Man by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith, 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

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. 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
AuthorTitleEditorYear publishedNotes
Don DeLilloWhite NoiseMark Osteen1998.
Graham GreeneThe Quiet AmericanJohn Clark Pratt1996
James JoyceDublinersRobert Scholes1996
James JoycePortrait of the Artist as a Young ManChester G. Anderson1977The only title known to include explanatory end notes.
Ken KeseyOne Flew Over the Cuckoo's NestJohn Clark Pratt1977Out of print.
Jack KerouacOn the RoadScott Donaldson1979Out of print.
Arthur MillerThe CrucibleGerald Weales1996
Arthur MillerDeath of a SalesmanGerald Weales1996
John SteinbeckThe Grapes of WrathKevin Hearle1997

Notable authors