Peter F. Collier

Peter Fenelon Collier (December 12, 1849 – April 23, 1909) was an Irish-American publisher, the founder of the publishing company P. F. Collier & Son. He founded Collier's in 1888.

Early life Collier was born in Myshall, County Carlow, Ireland, on December 12, 1849, to Robert Collier and Catherine Fenelon. He emigrated to Dayton, Ohio, in the United States, in 1866 when he was 17-years old. He attended St. Mary's Seminary in Cincinnati for four years. He then worked for Sadler and Company, a publisher of school books. With $300 that he saved as a salesman, he bought the printing plates to Father Burke's Lectures. In a single year, his sales were $90,000. In July 1873, he married Catherine Dunne.

In 1874, he published a biography of Pius IX and later published Chandler's Encyclopedia and Chamber's Encyclopedia. He then began publishing "Collier's Library", a series of popular novels.

He later formed his own publishing company printing books for the Roman Catholic market. He founded Collier's Once a Week in April 1888. It was advertised as a magazine of "fiction, fact, sensation, wit, humor, news". By 1892, Collier's Once a Week had a circulation of over 250,000, and was one of the largest selling magazines in the United States. In 1895, the name was changed to Collier's Weekly: An Illustrated Journal, shortened in 1905 to Collier's: The National Weekly and eventually to simply Collier's.

Death Collier died of a stroke while at his riding club on the morning of April 23, 1909 in Manhattan.

Legacy Publishing His son, Robert Joseph Collier, took over as publisher of Collier's. When Norman Hapgood joined Harper's Weekly in 1912, Robert Collier became the new editor. Circulation continued to grow, and by 1917, circulation reached one million. Robert Collier (1885–1950), his nephew, founded Robert Collier Publications.In 1952 the company published Collier's Encyclopedia.

Collier Prize The Collier Prize for State Government Accountability was created in 2019, established to honor Peter Fenelon Collier's vision and to encourage investigative and political reporting at the state level. Founded by Nathan S. Collier, founder of the Collier Companies, and a descendant of Robert Collier, and administered jointly by the White House Correspondents' Association and the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, the journalism prize was first awarded in 2020.

The inaugural prize was awarded to The Oregonian for Polluted by Money, a four-part series investigating campaign contributions.