Penguin Allen Lane founded Penguin in 1935, in London, when he couldn't find anything to read on vacation. His goal was to furnish affordable paperback books, something which the company does to this day.
Penguin's current headquarters are in Westminster and its imprints include Penguin Classics and Ladybird. It is one of the largest general book publishers in the world with offices in Australia, New Zealand and the USA.
In 1996, Penguin merged with Berkley Putnam to become Penguin Putnam, renaming to Penguin Group in 2003.
Oxford University Press
The Oxford University Press is the publishing branch of Oxford University, and is the world's largest academic publisher with over 4000 titles published every year. The department is classified as a charity (non-profit) and run by appointed Delegates.
The Oxford University Press' published works include Very Short Introductions and the Oxford English Dictionary. The OUP started publishing Bibles and other academic works in the 15th century but started to take its current form around the late 17th century when Delegates began overseeing the press.
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. is based in London and primarily publishes reference books and fiction. It is also the publisher of the Harry Potter series. The company is an independent, formed in 1986 by Nigel Newton, and its divisions include A&C Black reference. It has offices in the USA and Germany.
A series of acquisitions since 1986 plus the success of Harry Potter have resulted in its growth to its current proportions.
Macmillan
Macmillan Group is a privately-owned company with its headquarters in Basingstoke, Hampshire. It focuses on academic books, non-fiction and classic fiction, including Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Imprints include Pan, Picador and Kingfisher, all of which were once independents.
Also part of the Macmillan Group are Macmillan USA and Pan Macmillan Australia. The company was founded by brothers Alexander and Daniel Macmillan in 1843 and is currently owned by the German company, Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.
Other Publishers
Like Macmillan, numerous formerly entirely British publishers have been absorbed into larger corporations or now form part of much larger groups. For example, French company Hachette Livre owns Hodder Headline and the Orion Group.
Other British publishers include Chambers-Harrap, a reference publisher based in Edinburgh, Scotland; Methuen & Co. Ltd., who published the English-language TinTin books; and Routledge, now owned by Informa by way of Taylor & Francis.
Purely independent publishers tend to lie more in the fields of academia or reference (for example Cambridge University Press, Carlton Publishing, and Haynes Manuals, the UK equivalent of Chilton's Manuals).
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