The company George Newnes Limited was best known as a publisher of popular magazines. Realising that in order to achieve mass circulation reading material would have to be accessible at the lower end of the social scale, the proprietor, George Newnes, offered popular content at a low price. His magazine The Strand, published from 1891, gained a huge circulation by publishing the work of well-known writers, including Arthur Conan Doyle, who submitted Sherlock Holmes stories, and stories by P. G. Wodehouse. Newnes also published editions of popular novels which were sold for as little as a penny.

Always an accurate interpreter of popular demand, in the twentieth century the company developed into a publisher of popular interest magazines in areas such as entertainment, home, womens magazines, and do-it-yourself.

George Newnes Limited merged with C. A. Pearson Limited in 1921 to form Newnes and Pearson Limited. In 1959 George Newnes Limited was taken over by Oldhams Press Limited, which was bought in 1961 by Daily Mirror Newspapers Limited, later part of International Publishing Corporation Limited (IPC). George Newnes Limited remained as a publishing entity until 1968, when it was absorbed by IPC. IPC became a subsidiary of Reed International Limited in 1970.