Houghton Mifflin Company traces its history back to 1832, when William Ticknor purchased The Old Corner Bookstore in Boston and, together with partner James Fields, established a publishing house. By the mid-nineteenth century, Ticknor and Fields had assembled the most distinguished list of writers ever associated with one American publisher, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, and Henry David Thoreau.

Ticknor and Fields formed a close association with The Riverside Press, a Boston printing company, founded by Henry Houghton in 1852. Well known for its fine design and printing capabilities, The Riverside Press established its own publishing business in 1864. After working in almost every position at the Press, George Mifflin, an eager young Harvard graduate, became Houghton's partner in 1872.

In 1880, Ticknor and Fields merged with The Riverside Press to form a new partnership called Houghton, Mifflin and Company. While continuing to publish the esteemed authors on the Ticknor and Fields trade list, Houghton, Mifflin and Company also established an Educational Department in 1882.

Under the Educational Department, the Company published textbooks and the very popular Riverside Literature Series. By the time of Houghton Mifflin's incorporation in 1908, educational sales had increased 500 percent, and the department became the largest, most profitable business for the Company. By 1921, Houghton Mifflin was the fourth-largest educational publisher in the United States.

Houghton Mifflin continued to grow and diversify throughout the twentieth century. The publication of Lewis Terman's The Measurement of Intelligence in 1916 began the Company's involvement in publishing standardized tests. Houghton Mifflin worked closely with many pioneers in the assessment field, including E.F. Lindquist, developer of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills^®. Today, the Company's Riverside Publishing division publishes a broad array of educational and clinical assessments.

The years after World War II brought rapid growth in educational publishing, particularly in the college segment. To better serve its markets, Houghton Mifflin split its educational operations into two separate divisions: the School Division and the College Division.

Through its Trade and Reference Division, Houghton Mifflin continued to publish fine literature and reference works, including H.A. and Margret Rey's Curious George^® in 1941, Winston Churchill's The Second World War in 1953, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 1962, and the American Heritage^® Dictionary in 1969.

In 1967, Houghton Mifflin became a publicly traded company, trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol HTN.

To work with overseas customers and ensure the effective use of the Company's educational, assessment, trade, and reference titles around the world, the International Division was established in the 1970s.

The Company began a significant period of expansion in 1994 with the acquisition of secondary school publisher McDougal, Littell and Company. The 1995 acquisition of D.C. Heath and Company gained Houghton Mifflin entry into the supplemental school market, and in 1996, Great Source Education Group was established to combine the supplemental product lines of D.C. Heath, Houghton Mifflin's School Division, and McDougal Littell.

In 2001, Houghton Mifflin was acquired by Vivendi Universal, an international media group. Shortly thereafter, the Company was sold to Thomas H. Lee, Bain Capital, and The Blackstone Group, becoming a privately held company again in 2002.

In 2003, Houghton Mifflin added Cognitive Concepts, Inc. and its award-winning Earobics Literacy Launch program to its K–12 research-based supplemental offerings. Later that same year, the Company acquired Edusoft and its web-based assessment platform, which, in 2006, were integrated with Riverside Publishing.

Today, Boston-based Houghton Mifflin Company combines its tradition of excellence with a commitment to innovation, and serves as one of the leading educational publishers in the United States, with more than $1 billion in sales.