J. B. Lippincott Company

American publishing house, founded originally as J. B. Lippincott & Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1838 by Joshua Ballinger Lippincott. Lippincott had previously been publishing under the name "Clark and Lippincott" (1836-37). In 1849, Lippincott acquired Grigg, Elliot & Company, a significant publisher and wholesaler whose origins dated back to printer and bookseller Benjamin and Jacob Johnson in 1792. In 1850 J. B. Lippincott & Company became Lippincott, Grambo & Company but reverted to its former name in 1855 with the retirement of Grambo. The company was incorporated in 1885 as J. B. Lippincott Company. In 1978 the company was acquired by Harper & Row. They kept the J. B. Lippincott Company name, and they also published children's and youth literature under the imprint J. B. Lippincott. In 1990 it was sold to Wolters Kluwer NV, and in 1996 it was merged with Raven Press to form Lippincott-Raven Publishers. In 1998 Wolters Kluwer acquired medical publisher Williams & Wilkins and combined it with Lippincott-Raven to form Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. After further internal reorganization at Wolters Kluwer in 2002, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins ceased to exist as an operational entity; instead, the names Lippincott Williams & Wilkins and Lippincott are now used solely as publishing imprints of Wolters Kluwer Health.