Harlequin Romance
The first romance title published by Harlequin appeared in 1949, when the publisher first started. Over the years, a mix of fiction and non-fiction was produced by the publisher. It wasn't until the early 1960's that romance, particularly offerings from the Mills & Boon authors from the United Kingdom, began to dominate the Harlequin list. Within a few years, other types of fiction ceased to appear under the Harlequin name, and the publisher became synonymous with romance fiction.
In 1989, Bethany Campbell's 1998 title Flirtation River was awarded the Golden Medallion (predecessor of the RITA). His Brother's Child by Lucy Gordon won the RITA in 1998 in the Traditional category. Her Royal Baby by Marion Lennox also won a RITA in the Traditional category in 2004, while Jessica Hart won the RITA in the same category for her title Christmas Eve Marriage -- both books were released in 2004, but won their awards in separate years due to the cutoffs for judging.
In February 2007, the Silhouette Romance line was folded into the Harlequin Romance line. The "new" Harlequin Romance continued the numbering from the "old" line, with six titles released each month (Harlequin Romance and Silhouette Romance had each been publishing four per month before the merge).
- Harlequin Romance By The Numbers - A listing of titles published under the "Romance" imprint, in numerical order.
Interesting Facts
Though nearly 4,000 were published by Harlequin and later Harlequin Romance, only the title Hunter's Moon was used twice by two different authors (Henrietta Reid in 1970 and Margaret Way in 1983). The same title was also used for an Intrigue title by Dawn Stewardson in 1994.
