Mills & Boon
In 1971, the publisher was bought by the Canadian company Harlequin Enterprises, its North American distributor based in Toronto, with whom it had a long informal partnership.
Modern Mills & Boon novels, over 100 of which are released each month, cover a wide range of possible romantic subgenres, varying in explicitness, setting and style, although retaining a comforting familiarity that meets reader expectations.
In its early years the company also published "educational textbooks, socialist tracts and Shakespeare" as well as "travel guides, children’s and craft books".
[6] Historian Ross McKibbin has argued that 'it was the rapid growth of the ‘tuppenny libraries’ in the interwar years which transformed Mills and Boon into a firm which exclusively published romantic fiction.
[9] Furthermore, the company's innovative marketing extended to creating eye-catching covers, with attention-grabbing colours and "and romantic images of couples or the beautiful heroine", to display in store windows.
[9] During World War II, Mills & Boon created ads that notified the public that they could go to their bookseller and place a standing order on any of their books.
This marketing technique also created a sense of urgency, due to an implication that there was a limited supply for whoever didn't place a standing order.
With the decline of commercial lending libraries in the late 1950s, the company's most profitable move was to realise that there would remain a strong market for romance novels, but that sales would depend on readers having easy access to reasonably priced books.
[7] Beginning in 1958, they made an agreement with Harlequin in Canada to sell reprints of Mills & Boon titles, giving the firm access to the North American market and to make a major move into paperback publishing.
Harlequin, having made a great success out of selling licensed Mills & Boon titles in North America, wanted to secure the editorial source.
A considerable portion of Mills & Boon sales were derived from export markets, particularly India, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines.
[11] Outside the UK, Mills & Boon novels were officially launched in India in 2008, although they were already popular in the country due to unofficial imports and purchases from abroad.
In November 2008, BBC Four celebrated the anniversary by broadcasting the 90-minute drama Consuming Passion: 100 Years of Mills & Boon, written by Emma Frost.
[citation needed] The company has been criticised for repeating plots, the inevitability of their happy endings, and a simple writing style, whereas fans cite predictability as a key reason for reading.
[10][17] While there is no template or standard outline and authors are allowed full artistic freedom, there are, however, genre conventions that need to be met to be successful.
Penny Jordan, an author writing for Mills & Boon, has stated that "[the rules] are not written down, but if you diverge from reader expectations, they won't read your second book.
"[18] In popular imagination and feminist criticism, the heroine of a stereotypical Mills & Boon novel is often seen as a passive virgin who is submissive to the hero in every way.
[10][18] Joanna Bowring, co-curator of the Mills & Boon centenary exhibition at Manchester Central Library in 2008, notes that "there's always been a subtle undercurrent of force throughout the books and that's never changed from the earliest ones.
"[10] In 1966, the Mills & Boon author Hilary Wilde said "The odd thing is that if I met one of my heroes, I would probably bash him over the head with an empty whisky bottle.
"[18] In 2011, psychologist Susan Quilliam blamed romantic fiction, and Mills & Boon in particular, for poor sexual health and relationship breakdowns.
The surprising impact that romantic novels have on our work" in the Journal of Family Planning & Reproductive Health Care published by the BMJ Group.
