Pan Macmillan is the British trade arm of Macmillan, formed by 1990 from Pan Books and Macmillan's trade list and owned by Holtzbrinck; its firsts state "First published" with the year and a number line that includes 1.
Pan Macmillan is a publisher based in London, founded in 1843. We track 337 editions it published between 1973 and 2026, 82 of them first editions across 335 books. How Pan Macmillan marked its first editions is set out below, with a checker for the year on your title page.
About Pan Macmillan
Pan Macmillan is the British general publishing arm of Macmillan Publishers, formed by 1990 when the paperback house Pan Books joined Macmillan's trade division, and owned since 1999 by the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.
Macmillan itself was founded in London in 1843 by Daniel and Alexander Macmillan, brothers from the Isle of Arran. Daniel ran the business and Alexander built the list, which in the Victorian period included Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book (1894), Tennyson and Thomas Hardy. The American branch was sold to the Brett family in 1896 and became a separate company. Harold Macmillan, grandson of Daniel, chaired the firm after leaving politics in 1964.
Pan Books was set up in 1944 by Alan Bott. A group of publishers including Macmillan, Collins and Heinemann later owned it, and Macmillan became its sole owner in the mid-1980s. With Penguin, Pan pioneered the popular paperback in Britain, and Ian Fleming's James Bond novels first reached British paperback as Pan titles.
Today Pan Macmillan calls itself the fourth largest publisher in the UK, with offices in Australia, South Africa and India and a sister company in New York, Macmillan USA. Its imprints include Macmillan, Pan, Picador, Mantle, Tor, Bluebird, Kingfisher (bought in 2007), Macmillan Children's Books, Two Hoots and the Macmillan Collector's Library.
Holding a copy? The first edition checker shows Pan Macmillan's practice for the year on your title page.
Identification
How to identify Pan Macmillan first editions
What to look for
A Pan Macmillan first printing is read from the copyright page: a modern book states the year it was first published and carries a number line that still includes 1.
Macmillan in London, older books
An early Macmillan first edition has the year on the title page and no printing history. When the book was reprinted, a history such as "First edition 1900, Reprinted 1902" was added to the back of the title page, so a copy with no such list is a first impression.
The title-page date on a reprint is the year of that printing, so a dated title page alone proves nothing: always read the reverse.
Later Macmillan and Pan Macmillan books
The back of the title page reads "First published" with the year. Later printings and editions are listed beneath it, and any such line means the copy is not a first.
Number lines
Recent books carry a number line. If the 1 is present, in whatever order the numbers run, the copy is a first printing; a line such as 3 5 7 9 8 6 4, whose lowest figure is 3, marks a third printing.
Pan paperbacks
Pan was mainly a paperback house, and most Pan paperbacks, the Bond novels among them, reprint books first published in hardback by another publisher, so they are not first editions of the text.
A Pan Macmillan first printing is read from the copyright page: a modern book states the year it was first published and carries a number line that still includes 1. Macmillan in London, older books - An early Macmillan first edition has the year on the title page and no printing history. When the book was reprinted, a history such as "First edition 1900, Reprinted 1902" was added to the back of t
How many Pan Macmillan books does MyVolumes track?
We track 337 editions published by Pan Macmillan, 82 of them first editions, across 335 books.
