Harcourt Brace & Company published the works of a number of world-renowned writers, including Sinclair Lewis, Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, James Thurber, George Orwell and Robert Penn Warren.
World Book Company opened its first office in Manila in 1905 and published English-language educational materials for schools in the Philippines.
At age 60, when Columbia dismissed him because of his public opposition to the draft in World War I, Cattell decided to pursue his interest in publishing.
He joined forces with two former graduate students, Robert Sessions Woodworth and Edward Lee Thorndike.
The three men started a business to market psychological tests and related materials to educational, corporate and government clients.
In 1991, General Cinema Corporation, a diversified company that operated retailers such as Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman, as well as a national chain of movie theaters, acquired Harcourt Brace Jovanovich for more than $1.5 billion.
In late 2003, the testing business legally changed its name to Harcourt Assessment, Inc., and unified its two divisions into one operating company.
The company retired the two division names – Harcourt Educational Measurement and The Psychological Corporation – although it retained “PsychCorp” as a brand imprint for select products.
[2] Shortly after the layoffs, division president Jeff Galt left the company, and was replaced by Michael E. Hansen, who moved from Bertelsmann.
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".
Pearson already held a market-leading position in the U.S. textbook market and would not be interested in the main Harcourt business on account of regulatory concerns.
Reed stated that it expected to complete the sale in the second half of the year and would use the funds raised to return cash to shareholders.