Pelican publishes approximately 60 titles per year and maintains a backlist of over 2,500 books.[3] Most of its titles relate to
Louisiana and
Southern culture,
cuisine, art, travel guides,
history, children's books, and textbooks.
Its first release was Sherwood Anderson and Other Famous Creoles: A Gallery of Contemporary New Orleans, a book of illustrations by William Spratling with captions and a foreword by Faulkner. Spratling and Faulkner were roommates in a building just off
Jackson Square.[5][6][7] The book was a play on the Mexican cartoonist
Miguel Covarrubias' The Prince of Wales and Other Famous Americans, published the previous year; just as the
Prince of Wales was not an American,
Sherwood Anderson was not a
Creole.
Stuart Omer Landry period
In early 1927, Pelican was acquired by Stuart Omer Landry, who owned the publisher until his death in 1966.[8][9] Landry, who was born on his father's Alma plantation near
Thibodaux, worked in advertising and was a founding board member of the
Metairie Park Country Day School.[10] Landry was anti-
New Deal and a racial conservative, and under him, Pelican published many books advocating
white supremacist and
segregationist positions, including his own The Cult of Equality: A Study of the Race Problem (1945), The Battle of Liberty Place: The Overthrow of Carpet-bag Rule in New Orleans, September 14, 1874 (1955) (a defense of the
White League and the
Ku Klux Klan), and Rebuilding the Tower of Babel: A Study of Christianity and Segregation (1957).[11][12][13][14]
The African-American newspaper the California Eagle called Landry "an old-line Southerner of the traditional Keep-the-Negro-in-Place School."[15] Landry also published the first edition of the Louisiana Almanac in 1949.[16] Historian Lawrence N. Powell described Landry's Battle of Liberty Place as "propaganda, using history to defend segregation and a racial status quo."[17]
Sales to Hodding Carter and to the Calhouns
After Landry's death, Pelican was bought in 1967 by
Hodding Carter, the
Pulitzer Prize-winning progressive journalist.[18] He renamed the publisher to Pelican Publishing House, but his ownership lasted only three years. In 1970, Carter sold Pelican to brothers Milburn and James L. Calhoun, natives of
West Monroe in north Louisiana.[19] Milburn, who became Pelican's publisher and president, was a physician in New Orleans; James, who would be Pelican's senior editor, did public relations work for
Louisiana State University. The brothers already owned a similar publisher, Bayou Books of New Orleans.[20] The brothers were, like Landry, conservative; among the first books issued under their ownership was The Real
Spiro Agnew: Commonsense Quotations of a Household Word, edited by James Calhoun.[21]
By 1998, the headquarters was in suburban
Gretna, where a 1998 fire at the publisher's offices and warehouse did an estimated $2 million in damage.[22]
Neo-Confederate books
Along with works of local history and other mainstream nonfiction, the Calhouns also turned Pelican into what has been called "the central publishing house of the
Neo-Confederate movement," including books that helped "found the modern neo-Confederate movement."[17][23] Among the titles it published were Was Jefferson Davis Right?,[24]The Southern Nation: The New Rise of the Old South,[25]Myths of American Slavery,[26]Lincoln Über Alles: Dictatorship Comes to America,[27] and The South Was Right![28]
These and other Pelican books argue that "the Confederacy was the true moral victor in the Civil War...the Civil War was not fought over slavery," and "that the South should separate from the North all over again and form its own country."[29]
In a 2001 interview with the local weekly Gambit, Milburn Calhoun endorsed secession from the United States ("Oh, we would be much better off that way"), said Southern slaveowners "took care of our slaves because they had value," and that "Racism is not hate based on skin color...There are people who devoutly hate Southerners. That’s racism. The most widespread hatred of today is against practicing Christians."[29][30] The neo-Confederate books Pelican published were consistently among its biggest sellers.[30]The South was Right! sold more than 180,000 copies.[31]
After Milburn Calhoun
Milburn Calhoun died in 2012, after which his daughter Kathleen Calhoun Nettleton became publisher and president.[32][33] James L. Calhoun died in 2019. During their ownership, Pelican's catalog had grown from 22 books to more than 2,000.[34]
In 2019,
Arcadia Publishing bought a majority interest in the company.[35] A majority of Pelican's past titles were acquired in the transaction and are now published under the Pelican imprint of Arcadia. Pelican Publishing Company, still owned by the family of Nettleton (who died in 2021[36]), retains rights on the remainder.[37]
In 2020, Arcadia Publishing acquired River Road Press, another publisher of books about New Orleans, Louisiana, and the surrounding region. Scott Campbell, River Road's founder, was named publisher of Pelican Publishing and the two company's catalogs were merged.[38]
For a period beginning circa 2020, the headquarters was in New Orleans proper.[39] Later that year, it moved to its current location.[40]
Significant titles
Pelican Publishing has produced many noteworthy titles, including the following:
Arnaud's Restaurant Cookbook: Legendary Creole Cuisine by Kit Wohl
Blood in West Virginia: Brumfield v. McCoy by Brandon Ray Kirk, which tells the story of the
Lincoln County Feud[41]
The Cajun Night Before Christmas by James Rice, a
parody of the popular "
Night Before Christmas" poem in which Santa Claus visits
Cajun Louisiana
The Cavalry Battle that Saved the Union: Custer vs. Stuart at Gettysburg by Paul D. Walker
Clovis Crawfish, a children's series by Mary Alice Fontenot
The Commissioner: A True Story of Deceit, Dishonor, and Death by Bill Keith, on the
Shreveport public safety commissioner
George W. D'Artois[42]
^"Pelican Publishing Company". Archived from
the original on 2020-05-13. Retrieved 2023-12-27. Pelican Publishing 400 Poydras Street, Suite 900 New Orleans, LA 70130
^"Pelican Publishing Company". Archived from
the original on 2020-08-16. Retrieved 2023-12-27. Our new address is: Pelican Publishing 990 N. Corporate Dr., Suite 100 New Orleans, LA 70123