[1] The company was last based in San Diego, California, with editorial/sales/marketing/rights offices in New York City and Orlando, Florida, Houghton Mifflin acquired Harcourt in 2007.

[4] The first-created component of what would eventually become Harcourt was the World Book Company (unrelated to the Chicago-based World Book, Inc. publisher of reference works), which opened its first office in Manila in 1905 and published English-language educational materials for schools in the Philippines.

They published the works of a number of writers who became internationally renowned, including Walter Lippmann, Sinclair Lewis, Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, James Thurber, George Orwell, Valentine Davies and Robert Penn Warren.

Firms acquired by Harcourt, Brace include Brewer, Warren and Putnam; and Reynal & Hitchcock.

In 1968, Harcourt, Brace & World entered the trade magazine business by acquiring Ojibway Press.

[10] After an eight-year stint at Macmillan Publishing Company, Peter, William's son, joined Harcourt in 1980.

In 1984, Peter was named head of the company's $400 million college textbook and professional division.

[13] In 1987, days after a failed attempted takeover of HBJ, British publisher Robert Maxwell sued to stop the company from carrying out a $3 billion recapitalization plan.

Eventually, the company divested its trade magazines to the buyout firm Kidder, Peabody & Co. in 1987.

In December 1989, Peter Jovanovich became chief executive officer of the company, replacing Ralph D. Caulo, who left after the theme park sale.

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich was acquired in 1991 for more than $1.5 billion by General Cinema Corporation, a diversified company that operated a national chain of movie theaters, and retailers such as Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman.

According to Reed Chief Executive Crispin Davis, "This is essentially a strategic decision that we want to focus more sharply on our three existing businesses ... with better growth rates.

Its backlist included Sinclair Lewis, Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men, and Alice Walker's The Color Purple.

Harcourt also published high-quality literature in translation by acquiring European writers such as Günter Grass (Germany) and Umberto Eco (Italy).

The house was the original publisher of such classics as Mary Poppins, The Borrowers, and Half Magic.

Harcourt Achieve, Professional and Trade – publishers of supplemental and alternative core educational materials for pre-Kindergarten to Grade 12 schools materials for adult education, school libraries and teacher professional development; and adult and children's trade books.

Tests include WISC, WAIS, WPPSI, Raven's Progressive Matrices and Versant.