The story
Founded by Betty Ballantine and Walter B. Pitkin, Jr. in 1945.1
The company was failing when Oscar Dystel, who had previously worked at Esquire and as editor on Coronet magazine was hired in 1954 to manage it. By the end of the next year the company was profitable. Dystel retired as chairman in 1980. By that time Bantam was the largest publisher of paperbacks, had over 15% of the market, and exceeded US$100 million in sales.
The company was involved in an important Supreme Court case, Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan in 1963. Bantam Books was prevented from distributing some of its publications in Rhode Island by a state commission called the Rhode Island Commission to Encourage Morality in Youth. The commission, headed by the Rhode Island Attorney General, would essentially blacklist books and magazines it deemed "objectionable" for sale, threatening distributors with publicity and reputational harm. Bantam Books sued, arguing this commission violated freedom of press protections and amounted to illegal censorship without due process. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of Bantam Books, deciding that the commission's blacklisting practice constituted an unlawful prior restraint on free expression in violation of the First Amendment. The Court held that any system of prior censorship on publications "strikes at the very foundation of freedom of expression" and cannot be enforced unless regulated by precise rules with procedural safeguards. This was an influential decision reinforcing First Amendment protections against government censorship of published materials.
In 1964, Grosset & Dunlap acquired full ownership of Bantam from Curtis. In 1968, Grosset & Dunlap was acquired by conglomerate National General, run by Gene Klein. National General was acquired by American Financial Group in 1973. American Financial sold Bantam to the Italian firm IFI in 1974. Bertelsmann acquired half of Bantam in 1977 and assumed full ownership in 1980. In 1986, Bantam began publishing audiobooks. In 1986, Bertelsmann acquired Doubleday & Company and created the holding Bantam Doubleday Dell. In 1998, Bertelsmann acquired Random House from Advance Publications; Random House became the name of the overall holding company of the various publishing imprints. In 1999, Bertelsmann merged some of the many publishing units it held in Random House, including a merger of Bantam with Dell Publishing, forming the Bantam Dell publishing imprint. Bantam Dell became part of the Random House publishing group in 2008. Ballantine Books was merged with Bantam Dell in 2010. In 2013, Random House merged with Penguin to form Penguin Random House.
In 1998 Bantam won the Locus Award for Best Publisher, reflecting its work in Science Fiction and Fantasy.
From Wikipedia’s article on Bantam Books, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4