John Wiley & Sons: 200 Years of Publishing

The story of John Wiley & Sons, Inc., leads us along the arc of American publishing history as it traces one family‘s dedication, over the course of more than two centuries, to the transmission of knowledge and culture through writing.

Since its founding in 1807, Wiley has evolved into a modern corporation that develops and delivers content in print and online. All the while, the company has remained dedicated to publishing and has not been subsumed into a larger corporation, and the Wiley family continues to be actively engaged in the business. No other American publisher can match this tradition.

This exhibition, on view at The Grolier Club in New York through November 20, has given Wiley the opportunity to review 203 years of publications—tens of thousands of titles, including a collection of more than 800 rare and first edition books dating back to 1811—in order to choose the selection on display. Enhanced by original documents, artwork, and photographs from the company‘s archives and the Wiley family‘s collections, the exhibition portrays the company‘s growth against a historical backdrop: the development of the American publishing industry, the nation‘s coming of age, the evolution of modern science, and the emergence of a global community.

The exhibition includes publications from Wiley‘s earliest days to the present, with a major emphasis on the nineteenth century. Initially, the company published a mixture of American originals, English reprints, and the occasional translation of a European title. Over the first three generations, the Wileys moved from publishing a broadly based list of fiction and nonfiction titles to focusing on scientific and technical works, redefining the company as a leading source of “need-to-know” content for specific audiences. Today, Wiley has leading positions in scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing; professional and trade publishing; and higher education publishing. The vitality of these core Wiley businesses is rooted in the early decades of the company‘s activity.