Literature for the People : How The Pioneering Macmillan Brothers Built a Publishing Powerhouse - Sarah Harkness

Literature for the People

How The Pioneering Macmillan Brothers Built a Publishing Powerhouse

By: Sarah Harkness

Hardcover | 9 May 2024

At a Glance

Hardcover


RRP $54.99

$54.25

or 4 interest-free payments of $13.56 with

 or 

Aims to ship in 15 to 25 business days

From an impoverished childhood in the Scottish highlands to Victorian London, this is the inspiring story of two brothers – Daniel and Alexander Macmillan – who built a publishing empire - and brought Alice in Wonderland to the world. Their remarkable achievements are revealed in this entertaining, superbly researched biography.

Daniel and Alexander arrived in London in the 1830s at a crucial moment of social change. These two idealistic brothers, working-class sons of a Scottish crofter, went on to set up a publishing house that spread radical ideas on equality, science and education across the world. They also brought authors like Lewis Carroll, Thomas Hardy and Charles Kingsley, and poets like Matthew Arnold and Christina Rossetti, to a mass audience. No longer would books be just for the upper classes.

In Literature for the People Sarah Harkness brings to life these two warm-hearted men. Daniel was driven by the knowledge that he was living on borrowed time, his body ravaged by tuberculosis. Alexander took on responsibility for the company as well as Daniel’s family and turned a small business into an international powerhouse. He cultivated the literary greats of the time, weathered controversy and tragedy, and fostered a dynasty that would include future prime minister Harold Macmillan.

Including fascinating insights about the great, the good and the sometimes wayward writers of the Victorian era, with feuds, friendships and passionate debate, this vibrant book is bursting with all the energy of that exciting period in history.

More in Literary Biographies

Memorial Days - Geraldine Brooks

Hardcover

RRP $32.99

$21.50

35%
OFF
Gutsy Girls : Love, Poetry and Sisterhood - Josie McSkimming
Wifedom : Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life : Our July Book of the Month - Anna Funder
Night : Penguin Modern Classics - Elie Wiesel

RRP $22.99

$17.75

23%
OFF
The Bookseller at the End of the World - Ruth Shaw
Mermaids Singing and Peel Me a Lotus - Charmian Clift

RRP $29.99

$27.90

Myself and Other Animals - Gerald Durrell

RRP $45.00

$37.25

17%
OFF
On Writing : A Memoir of the Craft - Stephen King

RRP $22.99

$21.90

The White Album - Joan Didion

RRP $24.99

$23.75

Slouching Towards Bethlehem - Joan Didion

RRP $24.99

$23.75

The Year of Magical Thinking : Collins Modern Classics - Joan Didion
Memorial Days : A Memoir - Geraldine Brooks

$47.75

Letter to My Daughter - Maya Angelou

RRP $22.99

$21.75

Radical : A Life of My Own - Xiaolu Guo
Father and Son : A Memoir - Jonathan Raban

$38.75

Memories of My Childhood : Volume 6 - Olga Rogozenco
The Cost of Living : Living Autobiography - Deborah Levy
One Day I'll Remember This : Diaries 1987-1995 - Helen Garner

RRP $29.99

$26.50

12%
OFF
Unleashed - Boris Johnson

Paperback

RRP $49.99

$34.75

30%
OFF