About Us

The house was founded on April 1,1966 by Robert I. Fitzhenry (formerly Vice President, Sales for Harper & Row) and Cecil L. Whiteside (formerly Vice President, Sales for the Musson Book Company). In its early years, Fitzhenry & Whiteside operated primarily as a Distributor for American publishers – Harper & Row, Dial Delacorte, Grosset & Dunlap, Golden Books, Thomas Y Crowell, Henry Holt, and Walker, among others.

	R.I Fitzhenry		C. Whiteside

The company symbol is a Godwit. The bird is found in Canada’s North, and many ornithologists say that its familiar call sounds like: “Crazy, crazy, crazy…Correct, correct, correct…” And that is precisely how contemporaries of the two founders felt about the whole endeavour.

The first Fitzhenry & Whiteside published titles were in the field of elementary social studies, and produced in response to a call for materials from the province of B.C. The house’s first trade title, in 1967, was a statistical analysis of Canadians and their perceptions of Canada (Public Opinion & Canadian Identity). Some significant accomplishments in recent years include:

• In 1993, the house began co-publishing the Canadian Medical Lives series with the Hannah Institute.
• In 1995, Fitzhenry & Whiteside began to co-publish the Canadian Classics Large Print Library with the National Library of Canada.
• In 1997, Fitzhenry & Whiteside completed the publication of its CIRCLE Reading Program in the Cree North and Cree South dialects.
• In 1998, Fitzhenry & Whiteside purchased the Calgary-based publisher Fifth House, which remains an entirely separate corporation under the direction of Publisher Stephanie Stewart.
• In 2002, Fitzhenry & Whiteside purchased Trifolium Books, publisher of fiction and non-fiction titles for students and educators. (Trifolium has subsequently been folded into Fitzhenry & Whiteside).
• Also in 2002, Fitzhenry & Whiteside purchased the assets of Stoddart Kids, which consisted of inventory and contracts for some 350 children's and young adult titles. Fitzhenry management is firmly committed to maintaining the integrity of the Stoddart Kids list, and to strengthening its impact on Canadian and American markets.
• In 2005, Fitzhenry & Whiteside purchased Red Deer Press Inc, the Calgary-based publisher of award-winning children’s books, science fiction, and adult fiction and non-fiction. Red Deer Press remains an entirely separate corporation.

Fitzhenry & Whiteside is a private limited corporation owned by the Fitzhenry family with over 1,500 titles in print. We publish or reprint, through our group of companies, about 100 titles per annum. The house specializes in history, biography, poetry, sports, photographic books, reference, photography, and children’s and young adult titles.

Our books have been honoured with many Canadian awards. Click here to see our recent award winning books.

The major awards and some of our older winners include:

• Governor General’s Award
  • Greener Grass
  • Processional
  • Josepha
  • A Screaming Kind of Day
  • Rainy Day Magic
  • Northrop Frye on Shakespeare


• Sheila Egoff Award
  • Pride of Lions
  • Mood Pocket Mud Bucket


• City of Toronto Award
  • Toronto in Art


• Children’s Literature Roundtable of Canada Information Award
  • Wolf Island
  • Where Poppies Grow


• Bank Street College of Education Best Books of the Year
  • Sea Otter Inlet


• Ruth Schwartz Award
  • Chicken Cat
  • The Follower


• Silver Birch Award
  • If I Just Had Two Wings


• Canadian Authors Association Award
  • Apples and Angel Ladders


• Atlantic Writers Award for Poetry
  • Opening the Island
  • Processional


• Alcuin Society Award for Book Design
  • Fitzhenry & Whiteside Canadian Thesaurus

Fitzhenry & Whiteside employs 36 full time people, including a house trade sales force of 7, and operates out of our 76,000 square foot office/warehouse facility in Markham, Ontario.

Fitzhenry & Whiteside acknowledges, with thanks, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Ontario Arts Council for their support of our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

 

 

Note that Fitzhenry & Whiteside's Canadian Bibliographic Certification for our bibliographic data file is Gold as determined by BookNet Canada.

 

In-House Feline Consultants

Grit editing a manuscript.

Roxy and Grit discussing changes to a manuscript.

Sam at a marketing meeting.

Charlie doing a presentation to the sales force.