Grove Press

Weekly Record note, PW, Sept. 3, 1949, at 1194 (noting publication of Melville's The Confidence-Man, "[f]irst in a projected series of paper-bound editions of out-of-print classics.")  

Grove Press . . ., PW, July 4, 1953, at 40: 

Grove Press, now situated at 795 Broadway, New York, N.Y., completed its first year of publishing this spring. The firm was actually founded, however, in 1949, by John Balcomb and Robert Phelps on the Greenwich Village street from which the Press derives its name. Mr. Balcomb and Mr. Phelps had been interested in bringing back into print deserving books which were no longer available, an idea which appealed to the present head of the firm, Barney Rosset, who acquired the Press a little over a year ago. Mr. Balcob and Mr. Phelps, under whose direction the Press brought out three books, are no longer in the publishing business. 

Since the reorganized firm brought out its first book, "The Monk," in April of 1952, 51 titles have appeared under the Grove Press imprint. This number is swelled by the 20 titles in the Zodiac Library, a series of inexpensive classics. The Press has recently taken over another line, the International Library, published by Rutledge in England and formerly handled in this country by Oxford University Press. These are books in the social sciences. 

[More on Grove's early publishing efforts follows.] 

Dell Named Distributor of Grove Press Books, PW, Nov. 28, 1960, at 20-21 (effective Dec. 1, 1960). 

Whirlwind Book Co. Offers a Variety of Services, PW, Sept. 1, 1975, at 24 ("Whirlwind has already entered into an agreement with Grove Press, whereby they will distribute selected Grove titles in the U.S. and Canada.") 

Henry W. Sommerville, Dissertation, Commerce and Culture in the Career of the Permanent Innovative Press: New Directions, Grove Press, and George Braziller Inc. (University of Rochester 2009). 

Lots of great stuff on how smaller presses like New Directions and Grove lived off less popular reprints from larger firms like Knopf and Random House. Around p. 267, discussion of Grove's entering the quality paperback market. 

Loren Glass, GROVE PRESS, THE EVERGREEN REVIEW, AND THE INCORPORATION OF THE AVANT-GARDE (Stanford UP 2013).

Barney Rosset, ROSSET: MY LIFE IN PUBLISHING AND HOW I FOUGHT CENSORSHIP (OR Books / Counterpoint Press 2016).

Loren Glass, REBEL PRESS: GROVE PRESS AND THE REVOLUTION OF THE WORD (Seven Stories Press 2018).

Pat Thomas, EVERGREEN REVIEW: DISPATCHES FROM THE LITERARY UNDERGROUND: COVERS & ESSAYS, 1957-1973 (Fantagraphics 2025).