Editing CliffsNotes (section)

== History ==
CliffsNotes was started by [[Nebraska]] native [[Clifton Hillegass]] in 1958.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/12/openai-chatgpt-writing-high-school-english-essay/672412/|title=The End of High-School English|first=Daniel|last=Herman|date=December 9, 2022|website=The Atlantic}}</ref> He was working at [[Nebraska Book Company]] of Lincoln, Nebraska, when he met Jack Cole, the co-owner of [[Coles (bookstore)|Coles]], a Toronto book business. Coles published a series of Canadian study guides called [[Coles Notes]], and sold Hillegass the U.S. rights to the guides.<ref name=latimes>{{cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-may-07-me-60427-story.html |title=Clifton Hillegass; Built Cliffs Notes Into Multimillion-Dollar Business | first=Myrna|last=Oliver|work=Los Angeles Times|date=May 7, 2001|access-date=January 22, 2025}}</ref>

Hillegass and his wife, Catherine, started the business in their basement at 511 Eastridge Drive in Lincoln, with sixteen [[William Shakespeare]] titles. In August 1958, they shipped their first batch of notes and by the end of that year had sold over 58,000 copies. Hillegass hired literature teachers to condense works of literature into concise summaries, commentaries, author biographies and character analyses.	In the 1960s, as his own writers revised the summaries of Shakespearian plays, Hillegass eliminated the Cole's Notes versions.<ref name=latimes/>

By 1964, sales reached one million Notes annually. CliffsNotes now exist for hundreds of works. The term "Cliff's Notes" has become a [[Generic trademark|proprietary eponym]] for similar products. 

[[International Data Group|IDG Books]] purchased CliffsNotes in 1998 for $14.2 million. [[Wiley (publisher)|John Wiley & Sons]] acquired IDG Books (renamed Hungry Minds) in 2001.  In 2011, CliffsNotes announced a joint venture with [[Mark Burnett]], a TV producer, to create a series of 60-second video [[study guide]]s of literary works.<ref name=marketplace>{{Cite web|title=CliffsNotes Goes Digital|url=http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/03/10/pm-cliffsnotes-goes-digital//|access-date=March 10, 2011|publisher=American Public Radio|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727192539/http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/03/10/pm-cliffsnotes-goes-digital//|archive-date=July 27, 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref>  In 2012, CliffsNotes was acquired by [[Houghton Mifflin Harcourt]].<ref name=about>{{Cite web|title=About CliffsNotes|url=https://www.cliffsnotes.com/discover-about|website=CliffsNotes|access-date=June 20, 2015}}</ref> In 2021, CliffsNotes was acquired by [[Course Hero]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Online education unicorn Course Hero buys CliffsNotes|publisher=Silicon Valley Business Journal|access-date=August 21, 2021|url=https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2021/08/19/course-hero-buys-cliffsnotes.html}}</ref>