Macmillan’s 175th Anniversary

“If a large tree grows from this small seed we shall be grateful.” — Daniel Macmillan, London, 1843

“What Alexander handed down… was a tradition or, more truly, a marked character…” — Charles Morgan, The House of Macmillan, 1943

Macmillan is celebrating its 175th anniversary in 2018, starting with a celebratory toast at this year’s BookExpo at the Javits Center in New York City.

The global publishing powerhouse, which today publishes books in more than 120 countries, was founded in London in 1843 by two brothers, Daniel and Alexander Macmillan. The company grew to become one of the largest publishing houses in the world by the turn of the 20th century, with offices in the United States, Australia, and India. By 1999, the various companies founded by the Macmillan Family – including the independent US publishing house – were brought back together under the shared ownership of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, another independent, family-owned publisher based in Stuttgart, Germany.

The celebration continues online throughout the year with a social media campaign (@MacmillanUSA on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) using the hashtag #Macmillan175, featuring employees and authors telling their “Macmillan Story,” as well as notable historical facts about the organization.

Throughout its history, Macmillan companies have published some of the best-loved fiction, nonfiction and children’s authors of all time, including Lewis Carroll, Rudyard Kipling, Madeleine L’Engle and the poetry of W.B. Yeats and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, to the more recent Vice President Joe Biden, W. Bruce Cameron, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Franzen, Atul Gawande, Kristin Hannah, Hilary Mantel, Liane Moriarty, Louise Penny, Nora Roberts, Marilynne Robinson, Brandon Sanderson, Oprah Winfrey, Gene Luen Yang and more.

“We try to keep that family feel within Macmillan,” said John Sargent, Macmillan’s CEO. “We believe that staying true to our roots as a family owned company brings out a positive and comfortable environment for not only our employees but for our authors too. It’s a place where you can feel at home and we hope to continue that for the next 175 years and beyond.”