Meant to appeal to students and "non-readers", as well as people who wish to broaden their knowledge without attending a university, the series has sold more than a million copies.
[citation needed] However, when Richard Appignanesi published (and translated) the first English edition of Marx for Beginners (1976), it was soon clear that the collective had a hit on their hands.
[5] In the early 1980s, questions of control arose after some members of the cooperative sold U.S. rights to part of the For Beginners series to Pantheon Books.
[citation needed] Following this rift, in 1987 Thompson took over as sole publisher and moved back to his hometown of New York City to establish a legal foothold and prevent any further unauthorized distribution of titles.
[citation needed] Meanwhile, the New York-based Writers and Readers continued the For Beginners series, in several cases commissioning new authors to create replacement books for those being published in Britain.