In 1981, Charles Christensen and Joan Feinberg founded an imprint of St. Martin's Press called Bedford Books and started work on The Bedford Reader. Today, Bedford/St. Martin's is publishing across the disciplines of English, History, Communication, Music, and College Success. Books like A Writer's Reference, The Bedford Series in History and Culture, and A Speaker's Guidebook work because they grow from where disciplines are, where they're going, and what they need.