[1] During a career spanning a large part of the 20th century and ending in 1971, Warburg published Orwell's major books Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), as well as works by other leading figures such as Thomas Mann and Franz Kafka.

Other notable publications included The Third Eye by Lobsang Rampa, Pierre Boulle's The Bridge over the River Kwai, Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf and William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

With Warburg's support, the IRD was able to translate Animal Farm into more than 16 different languages,[2] and for British embassies to disseminate the book in more than 14 countries for propaganda purposes.

The marriage ended in divorce in 1932, and on 21 January 1933 Warburg married the painter and designer Pamela Bryer (née de Bayou, widowed) (20 March 1905–1978).

Warburg started his publishing career in 1922, as an apprentice at Routledge & Sons, where he came under the tutelage of William Swan Stallybrass, a man he regarded as "the greatest scholar-publisher of his day".

Among the books the firm published were C. L. R. James's World Revolution, Reg Groves's We Shall Rise Again, Boris Souvarine's Stalin and André Gide's Back from the USSR.

[7] When George Orwell parted company with Victor Gollancz, over publication of The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), it was to Secker & Warburg that he took his next book, Homage to Catalonia (1938).

[11] During the 1950s and 1960s, Secker & Warburg published books by authors including Simone de Beauvoir, Colette, Alberto Moravia, Günter Grass, Angus Wilson, Melvyn Bragg and Julian Gloag.