Ballantine Books

Ballantine Books is a major American book publisher that is a subsidiary of German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. Ballantine was founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine.^[1] Ballantine was acquired by Random House in 1973,^[2] which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann in 1998 and remains part of that company.

Ballantine's original logo was a pair of mirrored letter Bs back to back, later changing to two Bs stacked to form an elaborate gate.^[3] The firm's early editors were Stanley Kauffmann and Bernard Shir-Cliff.^[4]