The publisher was formed in 1981 from the merger of two long-established Christian publishers: Marshall Morgan and Scott, a London-based predominantly Baptist publishing house, which had acquired a number of publishing companies over the years, such as Bagsters (Bible publishers since 1794) and Oliphants; and Pickering and Inglis, a long-established Glasgow-based publisher, publishing largely for the nonconformist church in Scotland with many Brethren publications. Marshall Pickering was acquired by
Zondervan in 1983. Zondervan was bought by Harper & Row in 1988. In 1989,
Collins was bought by
Rupert Murdoch's
News Corporation, and the publisher was combined with Harper & Row, which NewsCorp had acquired two years earlier, to form
HarperCollins. Marshall Pickering was merged into Zondervan in 2001. ==References==