Mercury House, a project of Words Given Wings Literary Arts Project, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, is an independent trade book publishing company, based in San Francisco, California

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

. The press is distributed by Perseus Books Group

Perseus Books Group

Perseus Books Group is an American publishing company founded in 1996 by investor Frank Pearl. It was named Publisher of the Year in 2007 by Publishers Weekly magazine for its role in taking on publishers formerly distributed by Publishers Group West and acquiring Avalon Publishing Group.In January...

 and Small Press Distribution

Small Press Distribution

Small Press Distribution, or SPD, is a non-profit literary arts organization located in Berkeley, California. As their name indicates, the core of their mission is to act as an umbrella distributor and marketer for hundreds of smaller literary publishers...

.

The press has published over 130 titles. Notable authors include Harold Brodkey

Harold Brodkey

Harold Brodkey, born Aaron Roy Weintraub was an American writer, and novelist.-Life:Brodkey was raised in University City, Missouri outside St. Louis...

, Carol Emshwiller

Carol Emshwiller

Carol Emshwiller is an American writer of avant garde short stories and science fiction who has won prizes ranging from the Nebula Award to the Philip K. Dick Award. Ursula K...

, Shulamith Hareven

Shulamith Hareven

Shulamith Hareven was an Israeli author and essayist.She was born in Warsaw, Poland, to a Zionist family. She immigrated to the Land of Israel with her parents in 1940....

, William Kittredge

William Kittredge

William Kittredge is an American writer from Oregon, United States. He was born in Portland, Oregon, and grew up on a ranch in Southeastern Oregon's Warner Valley in Lake County where he attended school in Adel, Oregon, and later would attend high school in California and Oregon...

, and Leonard Michaels

Leonard Michaels

Leonard Michaels was an American writer of short stories, novels, and essays. He was born in New York City to Jewish parents; his father was born in Poland. He went to college and earned his B.A. from New York University and went on to acquire an M.A. as well as a Ph.D...

. Literary translations have included work from Alejo Carpentier

Alejo Carpentier

Alejo Carpentier y Valmont was a Cuban novelist, essayist, and musicologist who greatly influenced Latin American literature during its famous "boom" period. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, Carpentier grew up in Havana, Cuba; and despite his European birthplace, Carpentier strongly self-identified...

, George Sand

George Sand

Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, later Baroness Dudevant , best known by her pseudonym George Sand , was a French novelist and memoirist.-Life:...

, Pierre Michon

Pierre Michon

Pierre Michon is a French writer. His first novel, Small lives , is widely regarded as a masterpiece in contemporary French literature. He won several prizes for Small lives, The Origin of the World and his body of work...

, Philippe Forest

Philippe Forest

Philippe Forest is a French author and professor of literature. He has been awarded the First Novel Prix Femina and the Prix Décembre , and his works have been translated into English, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese...

, and Juan Rodolfo Wilcock

Juan Rodolfo Wilcock

Juan Rodolfo Wilcock was an Argentinian author, poet, critic and translator. He was the son of Charles Leonard Wilcock and Ida Romegialli.- Early life :Wilcock was born at Buenos Aires....

. In addition, the press has published books of essay, poetry, and Holocaust and Environmental studies by David Meltzer

David Meltzer

David Meltzer is an American poet and musician of the Beat Generation and San Francisco Renaissance. Lawrence Ferlinghetti has described him as "one of the greats of post-World-War-Two San Francisco poets and musicians." Meltzer came to prominence with inclusion of his work in the anthology, The...

, Dale Pendell

Dale Pendell

Dale Pendell is a contemporary author who combines science and poetry in his explications of the relationship between psychoactive compounds and human beings. A long time student of ethnobotany, Pendell discusses historical and cultural uses of "power plants" in his works...

, Ken Lamberton

Ken Lamberton

Kenneth J. Lamberton is an American writer and former teacher. Born in Duluth, Minnesota, Lamberton attended the University of Arizona, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing. He was working as a science teacher in Mesa, Arizona in...

, and Lucille Eichengreen

Lucille Eichengreen

Lucille Eichengreen is a survivor of the Łódź Ghetto and the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz, Neuengamme and Bergen-Belsen. She moved to the United States in 1946, married, had two sons and worked as an insurance agent. One of her sons is the economist Barry Eichengreen...

. The press also published a series of neglected literary classics by authors such as I.U. Tarchetti, Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...

, Henry Handel Richardson

Henry Handel Richardson

Henry Handel Richardson, the pseudonym used by Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson, was an Australian author. She took the name "Henry Handel" because at that time, many people did not take women's writing seriously, so she used a male name...

, and Horace Walpole

Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford

Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford was an English art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician. He is now largely remembered for Strawberry Hill, the home he built in Twickenham, south-west London where he revived the Gothic style some decades before his Victorian successors,...

. For several years Mercury House was the official publisher of the Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

 Lecture and the National Society of Film Critics

National Society of Film Critics

The National Society of Film Critics is an American film critic organization. As of December 2007 the NSFC had approximately 60 members who wrote for a variety of weekly and daily newspapers.-History:...

' annual compendium of reviews.

The press was founded in 1986 by William M. Brinton and Alev Croutier

Alev Croutier

Alev Lytle Croutier, known in Turkey as Alev Aksoy Croutier, is a writer based in San Francisco, US. Her books have been translated into 22 languages...

 and granted nonprofit status in 1994. Governed by a Board of Directors and run by an Executive Director, the press has been funded by individual and corporate donations, and by grants from foundations including the California Arts Council

California Arts Council

The California Arts Council is a state agency based in Sacramento. Its eleven council members are appointed by the Governor and the state Legislature...

, the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts

National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...

, and the San Francisco Arts Commission

San Francisco Arts Commission

The San Francisco Arts Commission is the official San Francisco County, USA arts council.The San Francisco Arts Commission It was established in 1932 and runs under the California state arts council, the California Arts Council . The commission is appointed by the major...

. Roughly three-quarters of its revenue is generated through sales.