Dodd, Mead & Company

Dodd, Mead & Company
Dodd, Mead & Company was a New York publishing house that ran, under successive names, from 1839 until about 1990. It began as Taylor and Dodd, a religious-book firm started by Moses Woodruff Dodd and John S. Taylor. Dodd bought Taylor out in 1840 and operated as M.W. Dodd. In 1870 his son Frank Howard Dodd partnered with cousin Edward S. Mead as Dodd and Mead; Bleecker Van Wagenen joined in 1876 and the name became Dodd, Mead and Company.

The list broadened from sermons and theology into American history, poetry, fiction, and general literature. Notable authors included Paul Laurence Dunbar, G. K. Chesterton, H. G. Wells, and—most famously in the U.S.—Agatha Christie, whom the firm published for decades after The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926). Frank Dodd also launched The Bookman (1895) and helped produce The New International Encyclopedia (1902). Later acquisitions added names such as William James, Sigmund Freud, and Carl Jung.

Still family-run into the late 20th century, it was sold to Thomas Nelson in 1981, then to Gamut Publishing in 1986. After fulfillment and debt disputes, operations stopped in 1989–1990; major rights (including Christie and Max Brand) went to Putnam Berkley. The original firm is defunct; a later site using the name is a separate revival, not the 19th-century house.

The best places to find Dodd, Mead & Company books online are:
eBay Books

Popular Dodd, Mead & Company Books
Agatha Christie
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
Murder on the Orient Express (U.S. title often Murder in the Calais Coach)
Death on the Nile
The Murder at the Vicarage (first Miss Marple novel)
Poirot and Marple titles through the 1960s–70s
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Lyrics of Lowly Life (1896)
Later collected poems and fiction such as The Fanatics
G. K. Chesterton – American editions of works including The Man Who Was Thursday and other Father Brown / philosophical titles.
H. G. Wells – Later or reprint editions, including The Island of Doctor Moreau (a 1933 Dodd, Mead edition is often cited).
Max Brand (Frederick Faust) – Dozens of Westerns; Dodd, Mead held a large catalog (over 150 titles) that was sold with the Christie rights in 1988.
George Bernard Shaw (plays and collected works)
Stephen Leacock (humor)
Robert W. Service (verse)
Maurice Maeterlinck
Theodore Dreiser (some later titles)
Ross Macdonald (Lew Archer mysteries)
Ernest Holmes, The Science of Mind (1953)
Reprints of Charles Dickens, Jules Verne, and other classics in series such as Great Illustrated Classics