Richard Branson's company Virgin Enterprises established a book publishing arm in the late 1970s, and in the latter part of the 1980s purchased several existing publishing companies. One of these, W.H. Allen, had been releasing Doctor Who novels under its Target Books imprint. Although Virgin Books was incorporated into W.H. Allen in 1989, two years later W.H. Allen was renamed Virgin Publishing Ltd.
Virgin Publishing's early success came with the Doctor Who: The New Adventures series. These officially-licensed full-length novels carried on the story of the popular science-fiction television series following its cancellation in 1989. Virgin published this series from 1991 to 1997 under the imprint Doctor Who Books. This imprint also published a range of Doctor Who reference books between 1992 and 1998.
