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Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a pair of mirrored letter Bs back to back. The firm's early editors were Stanley Kauffman and Bernard Shir-Cliff. Following Fawcett Publications' controversial 1950 introduction of Gold Medal paperback originals rather than reprints, Lion Books, Avon and Ace also decided to publish originals. In 1952, Ian Ballantine announced that he would "offer trade publishers a plan for simultaneous publishing of original titles in two editions, a hardcover 'regular' edition for bookstore sale, and a paper-cover, 'newsstand' size, low-priced edition for mass market sale." When the first Ballantine Book, Cameron Hawley's ''Executive Suite'' was published in 1952, the publishing industry saw that the simultaneous hardcover and paperback editions were obvious successes.〔 Houghton Mifflin published the $3.00 hardcover at the same time Ballantine distributed its 35¢ paperback. By February 1953, Ballantine had sold 375,000 copies and was preparing to print 100,000 more. Houghton Mifflin sold 22,000 hardback copies in its first printing. Ballantine's sales soon totaled 470,000 copies. Instead of hurting hardback sales as some predicted, the paperback edition instead gave the book more publicity. After the film rights were sold to MGM, Robert Wise directed the 1954 film, nominated for four Academy Awards. On the heels of that kind of sales and publicity, other Ballantine titles were seen in spinner racks across the country. ''Executive Suite'' was followed by Hal Ellson's ''The Golden Spike'' (#2), Stanley Baron's ''All My Enemies'' (#3), Luke Short's ''Saddle by Starlight'' (#4, also with Houghton Mifflin), Ruth Park's ''The Witch's Thorn'' (#5, also with Houghton Mifflin), Emile Danoen's ''Tides of Tide'' (#6), Frank Bonham's ''Blood on the Land'' (#7), Al Capp's ''The World of Li'l Abner'' (#8, with Farrar, Straus & Young) and LaSelle Gilman's ''The Red Gate'' (#9). Non-fiction was introduced with John Bartlow Martin's criminal case history, ''Why Did They Kill?'' (#14). ==Science fiction and fantasy== During the early 1950s, Ballantine attracted attention as one of the leading publishers of paperback science fiction and fantasy, beginning with ''The Space Merchants'' (#21). The Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth novel had first appeared in ''Galaxy Science Fiction'' under the title ''Gravy Planet''. Kauffman scored when he acquired and edited Ray Bradbury's ''Fahrenheit 451'' (originally in ''Galaxy'' as a shorter version, "The Firemen").〔 Ballantine's science fiction line also included the unusual ''Star Science Fiction Stories''. With cover paintings by Richard Powers, this innovative anthology series offered new fiction rather than reprints. Edited by Frederik Pohl, it attracted readers by successfully combining the formats of both magazines and paperbacks. The series pioneered the original anthology format later used by Orbit, New Dimensions and Universe, among others. In the early 1960s, the company engaged in a well-known rivalry with Ace Books for the rights to reprint the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and Edgar Rice Burroughs in paperback form. Ballantine prevailed in the struggle for the Tolkien work, with their editions of Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings'' including a message on the back cover from Tolkien himself urging consumers to buy Ballantine's version and boycott "unauthorized editions" (i.e. the version from Ace Books). A separate Canadian edition of the books was published with different front cover art work. Tolkien asked for (and received) permission to add the back cover message. Betty Ballantine recalled: "And we did put a little statement on the back covers saying that Ace was not paying royalties to Professor Tolkien, and everybody who admired ''Lord of the Rings'' should only buy our paperback edition. Well, everybody got behind us. There was literally no publication that did not carry some kind of outraged article. And of course, the whole science fiction fraternity got behind the book; this was their meat and drink."〔 In 1969, Lin Carter edited the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, which brought a number of rare titles back into print, as well as launching Katherine Kurtz's ''Deryni'' series. During the mid-1970s, Ballantine published the ''Star Trek Logs'', a ten-volume series of Alan Dean Foster adaptations of the animated ''Star Trek''. In 1968, Ballantine published the first non-fiction book related to ''Star Trek'', ''The Making of Star Trek'' by Stephen E. Whitfield and Gene Roddenberry. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ballantine Books」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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