American publisher

Ian and Betty Ballantine helped to form Bantam Books in 1945, and went on to launch Ballantine Books in 1952. Ballantine Books became known for simultaneously publishing books in hardcover and paperback, as well as being one of the earliest publishers of original science fiction paperbacks, starting with The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth. Almost 100 Ballantine covers featured artwork by Richard Powers. In 1965, Ballantine printed the first authorized edition of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and in 1969 created the Adult Fantasy line, which reissued out-of-print fantasy works by authors such as Lord Dunsany, Hope Mirrlees, H. Rider Haggard and H.P. Lovecraft. The Ballantines won two World Fantasy Awards, in 1975 and 1984. Betty Ballantine received a special Science Fiction Writers of America President's Award in 2002 and a Special Committee Award from LACon IV in 2006.

Selected Bibliography:
Ballantine Books: The First Decade (1987)