Mills & Boon is a romance imprint of British publisher Harlequin UK Ltd. It was founded in 1908 by Gerald Rusgrove Mills and Charles Boon as a general publisher. The company moved towards escapist fiction for women in the 1930s. 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. The two companies offer a number of imprints that between them account for almost three-quarters of the romance paperbacks published in Britain. Its print books are presently out-numbered and out-sold by the company's e-books, which allowed the publisher to double its output. 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. History Mills & Boon was founded by Gerald Rusgrove Mills (3 January 1877 – 23 September 1928) and Charles Boon (9 May 1877 – 2 December 1943) in 1908 as a general fiction publisher, although their first book was, prophetically, a romance. An early signing was the mystery and crime writer Victor Bridges. Mills & Boon also published—in 1911 and 1912—two early works by Hugh Walpole, including the very successful Mr Perrin and Mr Traill (which was subsequently filmed). Between 1912 and 1923, it published numerous adventure titles by Jack London. In its early years the company also published "educational textbooks, socialist tracts and Shakespeare" as well as "travel guides, children’s and craft books". It was not until the 1930s that the company began to concentrate specifically on romances. The company was purchased on 1 October 1971, by Harlequin Enterprises of Canada, their North American distributor. From the very beginning, Mills & Boon published in a form and at a price that was within the reach of a wide readership. In the 1930s the company noted the rapid rise of commercial circulating libraries and the growing appetite for escapism during the Depression years. Due to these type of libraries, Mills & Boon were able to produce over 160 titles every year during that decade. 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.' The favourite genre was romance and the company decided