Editing Virgin Books (section)

==History==
Virgin established its book publishing arm in the late 1970s; in the latter part of the 1980s Virgin purchased several existing companies, including [[W. H. Allen & Co.|WH Allen]], well known among ''[[Doctor Who]]'' fans for their [[Target Books]] imprint; Virgin Books was incorporated into WH Allen in 1989, but in 1991 WH Allen was renamed Virgin Publishing Ltd.

Virgin Publishing's early success came with the ''Doctor Who'' [[Virgin New Adventures|New Adventures]] novels, officially licensed full-length novels carrying on the story of the popular science-fiction television series following its cancellation in 1989. Virgin published this series from 1991 to 1997, as well as a range of ''Doctor Who'' reference books from 1992 to 1998 under the '''Doctor Who Books''' imprint.

In recent times the company is best known for its commercial non-fiction list, which includes business, health and lifestyle, music, film, and celebrity biographies. [[Richard Branson]]'s autobiography ''[[Losing My Virginity]]'', released in 1998, was an international best-seller at the time, and continues to sell well. His follow-up title ''Business Stripped Bare'' was published in September 2008. Virgin Business Guides included titles by [[Robert Craven]], Paul Barrow and Rachelle Thackray. More recently the company has enjoyed success with [[Robert H Frank]]'s ''The Economic Naturalist'', where the author had his economics students pose interesting questions from everyday life and explain them through economics.

[[Random House]], through its United Kingdom division, acquired a 90% stake in the company in March 2007.<ref name="sale">Joel Rickett, [http://www.thebookstandard.com/bookstandard/news/publisher/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003553676 Random House UK buys Virgin Books] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070926225412/http://www.thebookstandard.com/bookstandard/news/publisher/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003553676 |date=26 September 2007 }}, ''[[The Bookseller]]'', 5 March 2007 (via Internet Archive)</ref> In November 2009, Virgin became an independent imprint within [[Ebury Publishing]], a division of the Random House Group.<ref>Benedicte Page, [http://www.thebookseller.com/news/101574-virgin-joins-ebury-stable-sadler-leaving.html  "Virgin joins Ebury stable, Sadler leaving"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091207031816/http://www.thebookseller.com/news/101574-virgin-joins-ebury-stable-sadler-leaving.html |date=7 December 2009 }}, ''[[The Bookseller]]'', 2 November 2009</ref>