Bobbs-Merrill Company
The Bobbs-Merrill Company was a book publisher located in Indianapolis, Indiana. Company history. The company began in 1850 October 3 when Samuel Merrill bought an Indianapolis bookstore and entered the publishing business. After his death in 1855, his son, Samuel Merrill, Jr. continued the business. Soon after the American Civil War (1861-1865) the business became Merrill, Meigs, and Company, and in 1883 the name changed again to the Bowen-Merrill Company. In 1903 the name became the Bobbs-Merrill Company, after long-time director, William Conrad Bobbs. From 1899 through 1909, the company published 16  novels whose sales placed each of them among the nation's top ten best-selling books of the year for one or more years. The company was plaintiff in "Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus", 210 U.S. 339 (1908), a case regarded as the origin of copyright's first-sale doctrine. Bobbs-Merrill was known for publishing such authors as Keith Ayling, Erving Goffman, Richard Halliburton, David Markson, Walter Dean Myers, Ayn Rand, James Whitcomb Riley, Mary Roberts Rinehart and Irma S. Rombauer. Bobbs-Merrill was responsible for a long period in its history for publishing the codified state laws of  the State of Indiana and of other U.S. states. The firm also published legal and school textbooks, children's books (including "The Wizard of Oz" and "27 titles in the Raggedy Ann series"), and texts in the history of philosophy. In 1944, Bobbs-Merrill commissioned artist Evelyn Copelman to illustrate a new edition of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", reprinted as "The Wizard of Oz" and "The New Wizard of Oz". Copelman's illustrations were more influenced by the 1939 Judy Garland MGM film version of the book than by W. W. Denslow's original 1900 illustrations, although the credits  on the book stated otherwise. The year that Copelman's illustrations first appeared, 1949, was also the year of the film's first re-release. In 1959, The Howard W. Sams Company purchased Bobbs-Merrill. When Sams was acquired by Macmillan in 1985, the Bobbs-Merrill name ceased being used, with the exception of continued sales of the Fifth Revision of "The Joy of Cooking". This book continued to be a steady seller for Macmillan. There were also selected College Division titles, such as the Library of Liberal Arts.