John Wiley Timeline

Hoboken, New Jersey

Profile

Imprints

1807-1900 [Back to Top]

1807	Charles Wiley opens a small printing shop at 6 Reade Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City. He is 25 years old.
1811	Charles Wiley goes into partnership with Cornelius Van Winkle. Together they create the "Den" at 2 Wall Street, which becomes a meeting place for writers such as James Fenimore Cooper and William Cullen Bryant.
1820	Charles Wiley ends his partnership with Van Winkle.
1826	Charles Wiley dies and his son John takes over the business.
1836	John Wiley hires George Putnam as a junior partner and together they publish major American and European authors, including Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hans Christian Anderson, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
1848	Putnam leaves the firm, and John Wiley broadens their publishing base to include non fiction.
1850	John Wiley's eldest son Charles joins the firm , which becomes John Wiley and Son.
1875	A second son, William Halsted Wiley, known as "the Major" for his involvement in the Civil War, joins the firm, which becomes John Wiley and Sons.
Late 1800s	The firm alters focus to science and technology, following William Wiley's passions for engineering and the sciences. William Wiley trained as an engineer.
1899	Wiley publishes Charles Davenport's seminal work, Statistical Methods.

1900-1950 [Back to Top]

1904	Family business incorporates as John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
1904	Wiley agrees to act as the sole agent for Chapman & Hall, London, in Great Britain, Europe, Canada, Shanghai, and Manila. Chapman & Hall, no longer an active list, is presently owned by Kluwer Academic Publishers.
1929	Wiley sales are $1 million.
World War II	Several company texts were adopted for use in training Armed Forces Personnel

1961-1989 [Back to Top]

1961	Wiley acquires Interscience Publishers.
1962	John Wiley and Sons, Inc., goes public.
1979	Andrew H. Neilly Jr. becomes the first nonfamily CEO of the company. However today, the family is estimated to hold 70% of the shares of the company and controls 49% of its voting power.
1982	Wiley acquires Wilson Leaning Corporation, which provides training programs for business.
1984	Wiley acquires Scripta-Technica, a scientific journal publisher and translator.
1989	Wiley acquires Alan R. Liss, Inc., a life sciences publisher.

1990-1999 [Back to Top]

1991	Wiley sells Wilson Learning Corporation for $30 million.
1991	Wiley acquires the law publications division of Professional Education Systems.
1992	Wiley acquires Chancery Law Publishing Ltd., a law publisher, and James Publishing Group's paralegal line.
1993	Wiley acquires QED Information Services and UK science publishers Belhaven.
1993	Wiley sells Canadian school publish businesses and the primary school division of Jacaranda Wiley in Australia.
1995	Wiley acquires ValuSource from Executive Enterprises, Inc., the Oliver Wright business book publishing program, and the college engineering list of Houghton Mifflin.
1995	Wiley joins with Adweek Magazines to form Adweek Books.
1996	Wiley purchases 90% of Verlag Chemie (VCH) Publishing Group of Germany for $99 million. The group publishes the German Chemical Society publications.
1997	Wiley sells Wiley Law Publications division to Kluwer for $26 million.
1997	Wiley acquires Van Rostrand Rienhold (VNR) for $28 million from Thomson. The firm publishes environmental/industrial science, culinary arts/hospitality, and business technology.
1997	Wiley purchases Chronimed (health care) publishing business.
1997	Wiley becomes the publisher of Cancer, the flagship journal of the American Cancer Society.
1997	Wiley acquires Preservation Press and Clinical Psychology Publishing Company.
1998	Wiley's Technical Insights acquires Hewin International.
1999	Wiley purchases 55 college textbook titles from Pearson for $58 million.
1999	Wiley purchases Jossey-Bass from Pearson for $81 million
1999	Wiley launches Wiley Interscience, 300 journals and reference sources.
1999	Wiley acquires J.K. Lasser, tax and financial guides.
1999	Wiley joins with 60 other publishers to form CrossRef.

2000-2006 [Back to Top]

2001	Wiley purchases Hungry Minds, publishers of the For Dummies Series, Webster's New World Dictionaries, CliffsNotes, Betty Crocker Cookbooks, Frommer's travel guides, and Weight Watchers Cookbooks.
2001	Wiley sells Technical Insights to Frost and Sullivan.
2001	Wiley purchases Frank J. Fabozzi Publishing, a finance titles publisher.
2001	Wiley partners with Columbia University Press to produce a multimedia geology site using Columbia's Earthscape and Wiley's geology texts.
2002	Wiley moves to Hoboken, New Jersey.
2002	Wiley purchases GIT Verlag, a chemistry, drug, biotechnology, security, and engineering journal publisher with revenues of $10 million.
2002	Wiley purchases A&M publishing, publisher of pharmaceutical and healthcare content, including the journals Prescriber and Pharmafile. The company has sales revenues of $7.5 million.
2002	Wiley launches BioMedical PDA, a collection of 40 biomedical databases for use in personal digital assistants.
2003	Wiley takes over publication of the British Journal of Surgery.
2003	Wiley partners with the American Institute of Chemical Engineers to publish the AIChE Journal , Environmental Progress, and Process Safety Progress.
2005	Wiley purchases Sybex, Inc., computer book publisher. The company will become part of Wiley's professional and trade division.
2005	Wiley purchases Whurr Publishers Ltd of London, a publisher of books and journals on health sciences and special education. Price of the purchase is estimated at $3.5 million.
2005	Wiley acquires three tribiology journals from Leaf Coppin Publishing Ltd., independent technical and scientific publisher in tribiology.
2006	Wiley enters into a definitive agreement to acquire the outstanding shares of Blackwell Publishing (Holding) Ltd. for ₤572. Blackwell Publishing's revenue in 2005 was approximately ₤210 million. The combined business will publish 1,250 scholarly peer-reviewed journals. Blackwell publishes 825 journals, nearly evenly distributed between the sciences and the social science and humanities, many from professional and scholarly societies. Blackwell also publishes some 600 books a year.