Harlequin Enterprises - Early Years

Early Years

Harlequin was founded in May 1949 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada as a paperback reprinting company. The business was a partnership between Advocate Printers and Doug Weld of Bryant Press, Richard Bonnycastle, plus Jack Palmer, head of the Canadian distributor of the Saturday Evening Post and the Ladies' Home Journal. Palmer oversaw marketing for the new company and Richard Bonnycastle took charge of the production.

The company's first product was Nancy Bruff's novel The Manatee. For its first few years, the company published a wide range of books, all offered for sale for 25 cents. Among the novels they reprinted were works by Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, James Hadley Chase, and Somerset Maugham. Their biggest success was Jean Plaidy's 1951 release, Beyond the Blue Mountain. Of the 30,000 copies sold, only 48 were returned. Although the new company had strong sales, profit margins were limited and the operation struggled to stay solvent.

Following the death of Jack Palmer in the mid-1950s, Richard Bonnycastle acquired his twenty-five percent interest in Harlequin. Still struggling to survive, soon Doug Weld departed and Richard Bonnycastle, now in full control, transferred Weld's shares to key staff member, Ruth Palmour.

In 1953 Harlequin began to publish medical romances. When the company's chief editor died the following year, Bonnycastle's wife, Mary, took over his duties. Mary Bonnycastle enjoyed reading the romances of British publisher Mills and Boon, and, at her urging, in 1957 Harlequin acquired the North American distribution rights to the category romance novels which had been published by Mills and Boon in the Commonwealth of Nations. The first Mills and Boon novel to be reprinted by Harlequin was Anne Vinton's The Hospital in Buwambo (Mills and Boon No 407).