Description
On 12 September 1954, Sir Hugh Beaver invited Norris and Ross McWhirter to see if their fact and figure agency in London could help settle arguments about records. An office was set up at 107 Fleet Street, London, and work began on the first 198-page book. The printers bound the first copy on 27 August 1955. Before Christmas the Guinness Book was No. 1 on the best-sellers list. It has occupied this position every year since except 1957 and 1959 when it was not republished.
The first US edition appeared in New York in 1956 followed by editions in French (1962) and Ger- man (1963). In 1967 there were first editions in Japa- nese, Spanish, Danish and Norwegian, while the fol- lowing year editions were published in Swedish, Finnish and Italian. In the seventies there followed Dutch (1971); Portuguese (1974); Czechoslovak (1976); Hebrew, Serbo-Croat and Icelandic (all in 1977) and Slovenian (1978). In the 1980's transla- tions into Greek, Indonesian, Chinese, Turkish, Hindi, Malay, Polish and Arabic brought the total to 233 editions in 26 languages.
By 1974 the Guinness Book earned its own place in the Guinness Book. It had become the top-selling copyright book in publishing history. By 1986 the global sales had risen to more than 53 million, which is equivalent to 118 stacks, each as high as Mount Everest.
On 31 March 1986, having edited the book for 32 years, Norris McWhirter handed over the chief editorship to Alan Russell, who had been the television producer of the "Record Breakers" program in Great Britain.ISBN:0806947683
