Most stores sell books, magazines, newspapers, DVDs, graphic novels, gifts, games, toys, music, and Nook e-readers and tablets.

[10][11][12] In the fall of 1886, Gilbert Clifford Noble from Westfield, Massachusetts, who had graduated from Harvard College earlier that year,[13] was hired to work there as a clerk.

[23] The company underwent a significant expansion between the 1950s and the 1960s, opening an additional retail store on 23rd Street in Manhattan, as well as shops near the City University of New York, Harvard, and other Northeast college campuses.

[24] By then, it had been mismanaged and consisted only of "a significantly reduced wholesale operation and a single retail location—the flagship store at 105 Fifth Avenue.

[26] In 1974, Barnes & Noble became the first bookstore chain to advertise on television and a year later, the company became the first bookseller in the United States to discount books, by selling The New York Times best-selling titles at 40% off the publishers' list price.

[29] Solveig Robinson, author of The Book in Society: An Introduction to Print Culture, wrote that the purchase "gave [Barnes & Noble] the necessary know-how and infrastructure to create what, in 1992, became the definitive bookselling superstore.

"[30] The acquisition of the 797 B. Dalton bookstores turned the company into a nationwide retailer, and by the end of fiscal year 1999, the second-largest online bookseller in the United States.

Before Barnes & Noble created its official website, it sold books directly to customers through mail-order catalogs.

[49] After the bankruptcy and closure of its chief competitor, Borders, in 2011,[50] Barnes & Noble became the last remaining national bookstore chain in the United States.

[7][8] This followed a series of mergers and bankruptcies in the American bookstore industry since the 1990s, which also saw the demise of Waldenbooks, Barnes & Noble's own subsidiary B. Dalton, and Crown Books, among others.

[53] In February 2018, Barnes & Noble permanently laid off 1,800 full time employees at an annual cost savings of $40 million per year.

[56] In early July 2018, Barnes & Noble fired CEO Demos Parneros for an unspecified violation of company policy, which was later revealed to be over sexual harassment claims.

[57] It accused Pareneros of breaching his duties of loyalty and good faith and acting as a "faithless servant" by sexually harassing the female employee, bullying subordinates, and attempting to "sabotage" a potential acquisition of the New York-based company, and asserted that the company should therefore be entitled to claw back his salary, bonus, and other benefits during the period of his "disloyal conduct".

Daunt intends to overhaul the acquisition procedure, opting for centralized and reduced initial frontlist orders compared to previous years.

[67] In June 2024, the company announced the purchase (via its TC Acquisition subsidiary) of The Tattered Cover, the small but iconic Denver-based independent chain of bookstores, for $1.83M.

[68][69] The deal keeps the current branding, locations, most employees and plans to operate in the spirit of longtime owner and First Amendment advocate, the late Joyce Meskis.

[72] It announced in January 2025 that a location will be re-opened in downtown Washington D.C.[73] Barnes & Noble maintains a separate publishing business in addition to its retail stores and other entities.

[66] Barnes & Noble's publishing company got its start by reissuing inexpensive versions of out-of-print books, and made a push to expand the unit in 2003.

The company saw success the following year; in September 2004, its book, Hippie, reached The New York Times Best Seller list.

[82] In 2016, Barnes & Noble announced plans to open four concept stores in 2017 that featured cafés twice the size of its usual food spots, as well as bars offering wine and beer.

[85][86] The Barnes & Noble located in Fairbanks, Alaska gave over $80,000 to the community between 2015 and 2018 through book fair fundraising programs.

It was launched in October 2007 by Barnes & Noble CEO Steve Riggio and James Mustich Jr., publisher of the book catalog A Common Reader.

Art Winslow, former literary editor of The Nation, said that because Barnes & Noble is a brand name, BNR's contributors are effectively endorsing the corporation, and that the motives behind the publication undermine its integrity: "Criticism's content should be free of any commercialism.

[93] The Nook competes with the Amazon Kindle, Kobo eReader, and other e-reader offerings and color tablets with reading apps, such as Apple's iBooks for iOS devices.

[94] Version 1.3 of the Nook introduced Wi-Fi connectivity, a web browser, a dictionary, chess, and sudoku games, and a separate, smaller color touchscreen that serves as the primary input device.

[97] In November 2012, the technology publications Mashable and Techdirt criticized the license agreement with which Barnes & Noble sells ebooks to consumers, pointing out that the rights to re-download a purchased ebook expire when the customer's credit card expires, and a valid credit card must be added to the account to restore this functionality.

That same month, the company announced a partnership with Samsung Electronics to make Nook tablets, as the bookseller moved forward with plans to revamp its digital business.

In December 2014, Barnes & Noble announced that it had ended its Nook partnership with Microsoft by buying back its stake.

In 2021, the company announced the release of a new 10-inch Android-based tablet, which is named the Nook 10" HD, in a partnership with Lenovo, which is manufacturing the device.