August saw a literary milestone for a major publisher in Australia. Mills & Boon started setting Aussie women’s hearts fluttering 50 years ago, and it seems there is a growing appetite for romance fiction, so it will probably be going strong for its 100th anniversary. The company was founded in the UK in 1908 by Gerald Mills and Charles Boon. They began by publishing a wide range of novels, including adventure books by Jack London, fiction by Hugh Walpole, travel guides and cookbooks. It was in the 1930s that they began to specialise in romance (during the Depression there was a growing appetite for escapism). With an innovative marketing strategy and cheap volumes, they found themselves with a winner. In 1976 a Sydney office was opened and proved such a success that soon it was publishing its own titles. By 2008, 200 million Mills & Boon titles were being sold annually around the world (one paperback on average every 6.6 seconds). To learn more about the company’s history and impact, you might like to watch the fabulous drama Consuming Passion. I loved it!
I read lots of Mills & Boon novels in my teens. I even tried to write one and had it rejected. I used to stay with an elderly woman in an English village when I was a student. The only books she ever read were Mills & Boons and when I arrived, she would place a big pile by my bed. Her husband was a desperately unromantic farmer, who struggled to even remember her birthday, and I think the romances gave her the love and passion so obviously lacking in her own life.
The novels are now much more erotic than they used to be. They have also diversified – readers can buy gay romance, fantasy romance, suspense romance, or can choose medical / outback / western and many other settings. You can find a sexy cowboy, a sizzlingly hot Duke, a suave doctor or a Gothic Count. Just look at the recent success of Bridgerton. And the heroines are now career women, adventurous, sassy and determined. Yet such fiction has for long been the ‘black sheep’ of the publishing world. Critics have regarded romances as trash, some readers have placed fake covers around their copies when reading on public transport, and the titles have attracted ridicule. But try getting a manuscript accepted by Mills & Boon – it is not easy (only about one in every hundred submissions gets published).
There’s a security in picking up a romance novel. You are guaranteed a happy ending, it can take you to exotic locations, you (these days) get a strong heroine and of course a sexy and desirable hero, and (with Mills & Boon) you get a very predictable length of novel. Happy anniversary, Mills & Boon.
Are you someone who reads Mills & Boon? Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment.
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Penny Morris
I was a closet Mills and Boon reader as a teenager. I didn’t use a false cover but I certainly hid them from any prying eyes at home as they would certainly have been considered too saucy and not sufficiently literary by my english teacher mother.
Susannah Fullerton
My mother looked a bit askance at them when I read Mills & Boon, but I think she also thought it was good I was reading even if it was not classic fiction or brilliant writing.
Melody Lord
I’m not sure why we assume that readers of romance books are trying to ‘fill a romance gap’ in their own lives. We don’t assume that readers of thrillers or science fiction are trying to fill any such gaps. Sometimes people just like an easy read with a positive ending.
Susannah Fullerton
Yes, that is true. It is simply the pleasure of a happy ending and also the comfort of a predictable story.
Kate Ferguson
I started out reading the serialised romances in the English Womens Weekly and moved on to Mills and Boon with Betty Neels and Essie Summers! Easy reads, guaranteed happy endng!!! Great stuff!
Susannah Fullerton
I loved the Essie Summers ones, as they were set in NZ. I think she is NZ’s best selling author of all time.