Julian Messner, previously an executive with Boni & Liveright, and his wife Kathryn founded the firm in 1933, opening an office on West 40th Street in Manhattan, and planning to publish juvenile books along with a small offering of adult books.
[1] They published four books in their first year, including Senator Marlowe's Daughter by Frances Parkinson Keyes.
She served as president until her death in August 1964; [2][3] the company was sold by the end of the year to Pocket Books.
[6][7] In 1958, the company published a fictionalized biography of baseball player Warren Spahn for young readers, which was full of incorrect information and even positive false claims (such as claiming that Spahn had won a Bronze Star, which was untrue).
Spahn prevailed in a lawsuit against Messner, which is a leading case in the concept of false light, a claim related to defamation.