Universal-Tandem Publishing Co Ltd was a

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

paperback A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with adhesive, glue rather than stitch (textile arts), stitches or Staple (fastener), staples. In contrast, hardcover (hardback) book ...

publishing company established in the early 1960s as Tandem Books.

History

The company's principal imprint was Tandem. The hyphenated name Universal-Tandem was adopted as a corporate identity in 1968 after Tandem Books was bought by the American group Universal Publishing and Distribution Corporation Inc. (UPD), allowing Universal-Tandem to distribute some titles published by UPD in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

in the United Kingdom. In 1973, Tandem established

Target Books Target Books was a British publishing imprint, established in 1973 by Universal-Tandem Publishing Co Ltd, a paperback publishing company. The imprint was established as a children's imprint to complement the adult Tandem imprint, and became well ...

as a children's imprint. Target became well known for its highly successful range of

novelisation A novelization (or novelisation) is a derivative novel that adapts the story of a work created for another medium, such as a film, TV series, stage play, comic book or video game. Film novelizations were particularly popular before the advent of ...

s and other books based on the popular

science-fiction television Science fiction first appeared in television programming in the late 1930s, during what is called the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Special effects and other production techniques allow creators to present a living visual image of an imaginary ...

series ''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...

''. In 1975, Universal-Tandem was sold by UPD to the British conglomerate

Howard and Wyndham Howard & Wyndham Ltd was a theatre owning, production and management company named after John B. Howard and Frederick W. P. Wyndham, founded in Glasgow in 1895, and which became the largest of its type in Britain. The company continued well into the ...

, and the company was renamed Tandem Publishing Ltd before being merged with the paperback imprints of Howard and Wyndham's general publishing house W H Allen to become Wyndham Publications Ltd in 1976. During 1977–1978, the Wyndham identity was phased out. The Tandem imprint was phased out during 1980, and surviving titles from the backlist were subsequently reprinted under W H Allen's principal paperback imprint, Star. The Target imprint survived until 1993, though in its latter years it was used only for ''Doctor Who'' novelisations.

References

* Book publishing companies of the United Kingdom Publishing companies established in 1968 1960s establishments in the United Kingdom Defunct companies of the United Kingdom Year of disestablishment missing {{UK-publish-company-stub