Mills & Boon is a Britishpublisher of romance novels. It was founded in 1908, and was independent until its purchase in 1971 by Harlequin Enterprises with whom the company had had a long informal partnership. It has a number of imprints which between them account for about three-quarters of the romance paperbacks published in Britain
The popularity of Dickens's novels and short stories has meant that they have never gone out of print.[2][3] Many of Dickens's novels first appeared in periodicals and magazines in serialized form—a popular format for fiction at the time—and, unlike many other authors who completed entire novels before serial production commenced, Dickens often composed his works in parts, in the order in which they were meant to appear. Such a practice lent his stories a particular rhythm, punctuated by one minor "cliffhanger" after another, to keep the (original) public looking forward to the next installment.[4]