The History of LinguaText
We at LinguaText, Ltd. have been publishing foreign-language textbooks since 1974, when we came out with the first trial edition of our European Portuguese book, Portugal: Língua e Cultura. This was when we were called The Cabrilho Press, named after the Portuguese explorer who discovered California. That edition went through eighteen printings before we published the second edition in 1995.
In 1980 we published a second-year Portuguese textbook, Para a Frente! by two authors from Cornell University. This book is now in its twentieth printing.
We incorporated under our current name in 1989 and made plans to publish "niche books" in other languages, so that much-needed, but modestly-selling textbooks could be produced to serve the education community.
Our first book was a Spanish reader, Macario, and has been popular in AP Spanish classes in the high schools. Our next book was a modern French edition of the Old French Les Lais de Marie de France, destined for university undergraduates who study medieval French literature. These two titles have been moved into the Cervantes & Co. series under the European Masterpieces imprint. Our second new book is the Brazilian companion to our European Portuguese book, called Brasil! Língua e Cultura. We had been planning this edition since 1978, but did not publish it until 1992. It is now, after many printings, in its third edition. In 1994 a very updated Panorama de la literature española, by Nicholson Adams and John Keller, was published, and is now part of the Juan de la Cuesta imprint. In 1995 we published Go Dutch! a first-year college-level Dutch textbook. Go Dutch! is still in print and now has a downloadable MP3 audio accompaniment. 2007 saw the publication of Richard V. Teschner and Antônio R.M. Simoes' Pronouncing Brazilian Portuguese and Annette G. Cash and James C. Murray's text on translation, Teoria y tecnicas de traduccion: primeras etapas.
LinguaText Acquires Imprints
In 2004, LinguaText acquired two imprints in the fields of Spanish literary criticism and European classic literature. Juan de la Cuesta—Hispanic Monographs, named after the original printer of Don Quijote in Spain, has long served Cervantists and Hispanists worldwide by publishing important works dealing with Spanish literature from the Middle Ages to the Modern day. European Masterpieces publishes classics of European literature designed for classroom use. The series "Cervantes & Co." includes Spanish classics and "Molière & Co." deals in French classics.
The LinguaText editors are
Tom Lathrop (University of Delaware)
and Eduardo M. Dias (UCLA).