Macdonald

About Macdonald

Macdonald & Co. was a London publisher, founded in 1938, that grew within the Purnell printing group and then Robert Maxwell's printing empire before Little, Brown bought it in 1992 and it became the core of today's Little, Brown Book Group.

Theodore Thomas MacDonald began issuing cheap hardback fiction under the imprint T. T. MacDonald from Fleet Street in 1938. When he resigned in 1940, Wilfred Harvey, chairman of the printers Purnell and Sons, took over as joint managing director, and in 1942 the firm became Macdonald and Company (Publishers) Ltd. In 1945 it published the bestselling historical romance Forever Amber.

Purnell bought a series of other lists and in 1964 merged with Hazell Sun to form the British Printing Corporation, and many of the lists it acquired were reissued under the Macdonald name. The Futura paperback imprint followed in 1973. Robert Maxwell took a 29 per cent stake in the group in 1981, gained full control in 1982 and renamed it the British Printing & Communication Corporation.

After the Maxwell group went into administration in 1991, Little, Brown, then owned by Time Warner, bought Macdonald from Maxwell Communication Corporation in 1992, and the business was renamed Little, Brown Book Group. Hachette UK has owned the group since 2006.