Literature for the People: How the Pioneering MacMillan Brothers Built a Publishing Powerhouse

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.

’Absorbing’ - Literary Review

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.

’Revealing . . . Persuasive and fluent’ - New Statesman

Sarah Harkness worked in corporate finance for twenty years, latterly as a partner at Arthur Andersen. She spent three years as Pro-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield and is now a trustee of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and chairs the audit committees of Orthopaedic Research UK and Oriel College, Oxford. She holds an Honorary Doctorate from Sheffield University and an Honorary Fellowship at Mansfield College.

Her first book was a biography of Victorian artist and writer Nelly Erichsen. In October 2021 she was awarded an MA with Distinction in Biography at the University of Buckingham, studying under Professor Jane Ridley. Her 40,000 word dissertation covered five crucial years in the career of Alexander Macmillan. In 2021 she won the Tony Lothian Prize, awarded by The Biographers’ Club for the best proposal for an uncommissioned biography.

Sarah is married with three adult children and lives in the Cotswolds.