S. Fischer Verlag was founded in Berlin in 1886 by Samuel Fischer. At the end of the 1920s, his son-in-law Gottfried Bermann Fischer gradually took over the management of the company, guiding it through exile and wartime before relocating it to Frankfurt am Main. The recent history of the company has been shaped by Monika Schoeller, who was publisher from 1974 until her death in 2019.
Continuing the history and tradition of the publishing house, today’s S. Fischer programme includes contemporary literature and non-fiction – however, many big names of classical modernism are still prominently represented in the programme, e.g. Thomas Mann, Heinrich Mann, Franz Kafka, Arthur Schnitzler, Franz Werfel, Stefan Zweig, Sigmund Freud, Virginia Woolf, Carl Zuckmayer, Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Alfred Kerr.
In 1904, Samuel Fischer expanded his publishing house to include a division for theatre rights – to this day, S. Fischer Verlage manages and distributes dramatic works, screenplays and radio plays.
In addition to ‘S. Fischer’, S. Fischer Verlage also includes the imprints Krüger and Scherz with entertaining books, Tor with fantasy & science fiction, and FISCHER Taschenbuch with its large cross-genre programme. Since 2009, S. Fischer Verlag has also been publishing e-books – in addition to specific electronic publications, almost the entire book programme of S. Fischer Verlag is also available as e-books in various formats.
The current management of S. Fischer Verlage consists of Nicole Geismann, Dr Gerd Robertz and Oliver Vogel. S. Fischer Verlage in Frankfurt am Main is part of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.