Celebrating 50 Years
The story of Layman Publishing Partners begins in serious scholarship, collaboration, and a belief in the importance of accurate, accessible information. Fifty years later, we continue in our dedication to these values.
1970s
The partnerships that shaped Layman Publishing Partners began taking form in the 1970s. Working with Matthew Bruccoli, Richard Layman learned principles of discipline, competence, attention to detail, and responsibility that helped guide the company’s earliest work in an era when print reference was the primary source of authoritative information.
1971 University of South Carolina Professor Matthew J. Bruccoli and Detroit businessman C. E. Frazer Clark, Jr. form Bruccoli Clark, Inc. to publish limited editions of literary works.
1974 Frederick Ruffner, founder and president of Gale Research Company. Ruffner began Gale Research in 1954 as a one-man operation, sharing a rented desk as he compiled information for his first book. Within 30 years he had built Gale into the largest reference publisher in the United States.
1975 Prof Matthew J. Bruccoli and his PhD student Richard Layman. Bruccoli directed Layman’s dissertation on Ring Lardner.
1977 Bruccoli and Clark discussing Gale Research Company President Frederick Ruffner’s request for a proposal to produce “a book about authors,” which became the Dictionary of Literary Biography.
1978 Bruccoli and C. E. Frazer Clark partner to incorporate the publishing firm Bruccoli Clark, with Richard Layman as Managing Editor.
1979 The inaugural volume of the Dictionary of Literary Biography, covering the American Renaissance in New England, is published.
1980s
Bruccoli Clark broadened its publishing work while continuing to build the Dictionary of Literary Biography into a defining scholarly reference series. During this decade, Richard Layman became a partner and took on a central role in shaping the company’s direction as Bruccoli Clark Layman.
1985 Bruccoli Clark and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich launch The New Black Mask Quarterly, a quarterly trade paperback revival of the early twentieth-century pulp magazine Black Mask.
1986 The company becomes Bruccoli Clark Layman when Richard Layman becomes partner.
1986 Dictionary of Literary Biography reaches 50 volumes with Afro-American Writers Before the Harlem Renaissance.
1990s
As digital technologies began changing how information was accessed, Bruccoli Clark Layman continued to distinguish its work through depth, scholarship, and editorial authority. The decade brought the launch of American Decades and the 200th volume of the Dictionary of Literary Biography.
1988–1991 BCL imprint Manly produces Eminent Scholars, a thirty-episode set of video curricula featuring important scholars and educators on modern American literature.
1996 Bruccoli Clark Layman imprint Manly launches American Decades, a decade-by-decade cultural history of the United States.
1999 Dictionary of Literary Biography publishes volume 200: American Women Prose Writers to 1820. The series has twice been recognized as a RUSA Outstanding Reference Source.
2000s
Bruccoli Clark Layman entered the new millennium with an expanding portfolio of large-scale publishing projects. The company launched ambitious new reference projects, while the Dictionary of Literary Biography, nearly three decades old, earned some of its strongest recognition yet.
2000 Manly launches the multivolume reference guide Literary Masterpieces and begins production on History in Dispute, a multivolume educational reference on major historical debates.
2006 Library Journal calls the Dictionary of Literary Biography “hands-down the best overall literary reference work ever published,” a proverbial diamond as big as the Ritz.
2008 Matthew Bruccoli, lauded as “academia’s Fitzgerald record keeper,” dies at age 76.
2010s
To meet the needs of publishers in an increasingly digital environment, Layman expanded into a broader suite of services, including digital delivery services. This era marked a shift from traditional reference production to publishing support across both print and digital formats.
2010 Richard Layman and Dennis Poupard found Layman Poupard Publishing, drawing on the resources and experience of Bruccoli Clark Layman to begin producing Gale’s Literature Criticism Series.
2015 The University of South Carolina marks the acquisition of the Dashiell Hammett family papers and Layman’s own Hammett archive.
2019 Disability Experiences, a guide to life writing by persons with disabilities, is produced by LPP for Gale. The work is a Dartmouth Medal honorable mention, PROSE award finalist, and named among the best reference titles of 2019 by Library Journal.
2020s
2026 marked a new chapter in a publishing story half a century in the making. Layman Publishing Partners brings together Bruccoli Clark Layman, Manly, and Layman Poupard Publishing into one family that carries on a legacy of editorial work and meaningful humanities scholarship.
2020–2023 Layman Poupard Publishing’s work expands across publishing services, from licensing for Princeton University Press to Wristwatch Annual production for Abbeville Press and scholar-curated digital content for Gale’s Literature Resource Center.
2025 Volume 395 of Dictionary of Literary Biography becomes the first digital-native volume, marking the series’ transition to fully online publication.
2026 The company becomes Layman Publishing Partners as Jeff Layman, a former vice-president at Humana, joins as Vice President and CFO. Richard Layman remains as Director, and Kourtnay King serves as Managing Director.
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