Following his departure from Ace Books in 1971, veteran paperback editor Donald A. Wollheim and his wife Elsie B. Wollheim founded DAW Books as the first publishing company devoted to science fiction and fantasy. Wolheim had been involved in science fiction since the 1930s when he wrote and published a number of stoires. he was also active in the New York branch of the Futurians society. During his time Ace, where he was engaged as editor in chief, Wolheim had been responsible for publishing high quality science fiction. A number of Ace's emerging writers later became prominent in the genre. These included Samuel R. Delany and Philip K. Dick.
When Ace founder A. A. Wyn died a number of changes to the company management were put in place by the board of directors and Wolheim resigned in order to start his own publishing business. The impetus for this was an agreement with New American Library to co-publish a line of science fiction books under the DAW imprint. DAW's debut release was the short story collection Spell of the Witch World (1972) by Andre Norton. Almost 40 years later and with more than 1,500 titles published, DAW has a well-deserved reputation for discovering and publishing the greatest talents in the industry.
Many significant science fiction and fantasy writers were given their publishing start at DAW book, including Tad Williams, C. J. Cherryh, Mercedes Lackey, Melanie Rawn, C.S. Friedman, M. A. Foster, Jennifer Roberson, and Tanith Lee. The company also published numerous books by well-respected authors in the 1970s, including such luminaries as Marion Zimmer Bradley, Fritz Leiber, Edward Llewellyn, Jerry Pournelle, Roger Zelazny and many others. Among the established authors to have their works published by DAW were Lin Carter, Philip Dick and Gordon R. Dickson. In 1982, C. J. Cherryh's Downbelow Station was the first DAW book to win the Hugo Award for best novel, which gained the publishing house increased respect within the industry. The company also established a reputation for publishing translations of works by leading European science fiction writers, as well as those from other countries like Australia.
For the first thirteen years DAW's books were characterized by yellow spines and a prominent yellow cover box containing the company's logo and a chronological publication number. In 1984 the numbering system was moved to the copyright page and renamed the DAW Collectors' Book Number.
Although it has a distribution relationship with Penguin Group and is headquartered in Penguin New York City offices, DAW remains a privately-owned company, with the current publishers being Elizabeth R. Wollheim (Donald and Elsie's daughter) and Sheila E. Gilbert.
Among the Australian authors to have been published by DAW, including anthologies, are: Bertram A. Chandler, David J. Lake, Simon Brown, Stephen Dedman and Sophie Masson.
