Abacus
Abacus is a British paperback imprint founded in 1973, first linked to Sphere Books and now part of Little, Brown Book Group (Hachette UK), publishing literary fiction and non-fiction.
- Editions tracked
- 34
- First editions
- 4
- Books
- 34
- Years
- 1981 to 2015
About Abacus
Abacus is a British paperback imprint, launched in 1973 and now part of Little, Brown Book Group within Hachette UK, known for literary fiction and non-fiction.
The list began in 1973 publishing non-fiction only; one of its early titles was Primo Levi's Holocaust memoir If This Is a Man. In its early decades Abacus sat with Sphere Books, the paperback house launched by the Thomson Corporation in 1966. Sphere passed to Pearson (and so into the Penguin group) in 1985, and in April 1989 Macdonald & Co. bought Sphere together with its Abacus and Cardinal imprints.
In 1992 the Time Warner subsidiary Little, Brown bought Macdonald from Maxwell Communication Corporation and renamed the British business Little, Brown Book Group. Hachette acquired the group from Time Warner in 2006, and Abacus has remained one of its imprints. It marked its 50th anniversary in 2023.
Authors on the Abacus list include Primo Levi, Nelson Mandela, David Sedaris, Malcolm Gladwell, Tom Holland, David Foster Wallace, Beryl Bainbridge, Jane Gardam, Alexander McCall Smith, Celeste Ng and Donna Tartt.
How to spot a Abacus first edition
We have not yet written the guide to Abacus's first-edition conventions. Until we do, check each book's own page: we list its points where we know them. Know how Abacus marked its firsts? Tell us.
AuthorsIain Banks (3)David Sedaris (3)Candace Bushnell (2)Edwidge Danticat (2)Eden Robinson (2)Anita Shreve (2)Mark Behr (1)Douglas Coupland (1)Slavenka Drakulić (1)Marilyn French (1)
SeriesHistory of Rome
Published by Abacus
Frequently asked questions
How do I identify an Abacus first edition?
Check the title page and the copyright page: a Abacus first edition gives the first date of publication with no later impression or edition stated. Each book's page here lists its own points.
How many Abacus books does MyVolumes track?
We track 34 editions published by Abacus, 4 of them first editions, across 34 books.
Where these facts come from
- Abacus imprint page, Little, Brown Book Group (littlebrown.co.uk)
- London Book Fair 2023: A Bumper Year for Publishing Anniversaries, Publishers Weekly, 2023 (publishersweekly.com)
- Sphere Books, Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
- Little, Brown Book Group, Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
Every fact on this page was checked against the sources listed. Checked 18 October 2026.