Macmillan

About Macmillan

Macmillan is a British publishing house founded in 1843 by the Scottish brothers Daniel and Alexander Macmillan, first publisher of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), and since 1999 wholly owned by the German Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.

Daniel ran the business side while Alexander built the literary list. In their first year the brothers also took over Thomas Newby's business in Cambridge. Macmillan issued Alice in 1865 and Kipling's The Jungle Book in 1894, and its authors included Charles Kingsley, Thomas Hughes, Christina Rossetti, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Henry James, Thomas Hardy, H. G. Wells, W. B. Yeats and John Maynard Keynes. It founded the journal Nature in 1869 and launched the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians in 1877. Daniel's grandson Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister from 1957 to 1963, later chaired the company.

Macmillan opened its first US office in 1869; in 1896 the American business was sold to the Brett family and became a separate company, so US "Macmillan" first editions of that period come from a different firm from the London house. Today the group trades in the UK as Pan Macmillan, with imprints such as Pan, Picador and Macmillan Children's Books, alongside a sister company in New York. It is counted among the Big Five English-language publishers.

How to spot a Macmillan first edition

• This guide covers only the American firm, The Macmillan Company of New York (later Macmillan Publishing Co.); the British Macmillan has its own practice.
• Before mid 1936 there is no "First printing" line. For a first printing, the year on the title page should match the latest year on the copyright page.
• From mid 1936 a first printing carries a printing statement on the copyright page. A further line beneath it, such as a second printing or revised edition note, means the copy is not a first.
• A number row was added later: two guides place it in the 1970s and one after 1979. The "1" must be present for a first printing.
• Book club copies (a general tell for US trade houses; no mark specific to this house was found): a jacket flap with no printed price is the commonest sign, though a printed price does not on its own rule out a club copy. Also look for a small blind stamp, such as a dot or square, pressed into the rear board, and for a book that is smaller and more cheaply made than the trade edition.