Fratelli Fabbri Editori

Description

The origins of Fratelli Fabbri Editori are to be traced back to 1945, when Giovanni and Dino Fabbri founded Edizioni Stampe Internazionali. The business lasted only few years, but its activities were marked by the publication of Mario Hazon's Impariamo l'inglese, an innovative English course sold in instalments on newsstands. Indeed, the two brothers had noticed the fascination of the Italian population with the British and American troops in the post-war period, and they were aware that this fascination would translate into an interest in learning English. This presented potential for the publishing of school textbooks, which was the focus of their new company, Fratelli Fabbri Editori, founded in Milan in 1947.
In the 1950s, the brother Ettore entered the business as well, where he was responsible for marketing and distribution. The company rapidly increased its initial capital, and it soon began to publish works of various typologies and on different topics, alongside school textbooks. The books were published in installments and sold on newsstands, the publisher's preffered ditribution channel, as it allowed to keep prices low.
A milestone in the publisher's history was the publication of the Conoscere encyclopedia in 1958: it was tranlsated into 13 languages, and its success in Italy and abroad can be measured in terms of the 3 milion copies it reached.
In the 1960s the capital kept increasing, but in 1970s the publisher was hit by the general crisis affecting the publishing sector in Italy. This led to the creation of a group which included Fabbri, Bompiani, Etas, and Sonzogno, controlled by the Istituto finanziario industriale (Ifi), a financial holding company linked with the Agnelli family and the automotive company FIAT.
In the 1990s, the publisher entered the Rizzoli-Corriere della Sera (RCS) group, which is now part of the Gruppo Mondadori.