<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Ballantine Books was founded in 1952 by Ian and Betty Ballantine, who had previously been the United States editors for Penguin Books and then operated Bantam Books. Perhaps its most innovative move was simultaneous paperback and hardcover publication with Farrar Straus & Co., (now Farrar Straus & Giroux). In the '50s it was known as the high-quality sf publisher; while the sf published by Ace Books (usually in the Ace Doubles format) looked, and usually was, fairly pulpy, Ballantine Books were more ambitious.

Among the books published by Ballantine in the '50s are such classics as Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke; Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury; More than Human, by Theodore Sturgeon; and The Space Merchants, by Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth. At that time Ballantine also published Pohl's Star Science Fiction original anthologies.

In 1966, Ballantine published authorized editions of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. The success of these books inspired the creation of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, under the editorship of Lin Carter, which brought mass-market publication to James Branch Cabell, E. R. Eddison, Mervin Peake, and many more.

In 1973, Random House bought up the company, and the Ballantines left. It remains as a mass market and trade paperback brand, but it publishes sf and fantasy as Del Rey Books.