Gerald Rusgrove Mills (3 January 1877 – 23 September 1928) was a publisher who, along with
Charles Boon, established the publishing company
Mills & Boon
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 ...
in 1908.
Early life
Gerald Rusgrove Mills was born on 3 January 1877 in
Stourbridge
Stourbridge is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the West Midlands, England, situated on the River Stour. Historically in Worcestershire, it was the centre of British glass making during the Industrial Revolution. The ...
as the eldest son of Harry Mills, a solicitor. He had a comfortable childhood. After attending
Mason Science College
Mason Science College was a university college in Birmingham, England, and a predecessor college of Birmingham University. Founded in 1875 by industrialist and philanthropist Sir Josiah Mason, the college was incorporated into the University o ...
(which later became the
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university located in Edgbaston, Birmingham, United Kingdom. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingha ...
) and
Caius College
Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of t ...
, Cambridge, Mills started his association with publishing industry by joining the educational publishers Whitaker & Co. in London. He later joined the publisher
Methuen & Co
Methuen Publishing Ltd is an English publishing house. It was founded in 1889 by Sir Algernon Methuen (1856–1924) and began publishing in London in 1892. Initially Methuen mainly published non-fiction academic works, eventually diversifying ...
. as educational manager where he met his future collaborator Charles Boon who was then working as a sales manager. After working in Methuen & Co. for about 10 years, Mills and Boon joined together and founded their own firm ''Mills & Boon'' in 1908 with an initial investment of £1000.
Publishing
In its early days, Mills & Boon was not an exclusive publisher of romantic fiction: it published general fiction, "travel guides, children’s and craft books", as well as "educational textbooks, socialist tracts and Shakespeare". The company continued to publish such titles till the unexpected death of Mills in 1928. After Mills' death, Boon remade the company as a single-genre publishing house, publishing only romantic fiction
A romance novel or romantic novel generally refers to a type of genre fiction novel which places its primary focus on the relationship and Romance (love), romantic love between two people, and usually has an "emotionally satisfying and optimis ...
.
Personal life and death
Gerald Mills married Rose Shawood Anderson in 1912; they had no children. He died in South Kensington on 23 September 1928.[England and Wales National Probate Calendar, via Ancestry.co.uk]
References
Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mills, Gerald Rusgrove
1877 births
1928 deaths
English publishers (people)
Alumni of the University of Birmingham
People from Stourbridge