Frederick Warburg bought the firm Martin Secker in 1936, and formed the publishing company Secker and Warburg in partnership with Roger Senhouse. The new firm continued the literary strength of Martin Secker, but also showed a preference for publishing politically radical books. It has specialised in translations of the original work of foreign authors, such as Mann, Kafka, De Beauvoir, Moravia, Gide, Collette, Musil, Boll, and a number of books by Japanese authors. It was the first publisher of George Orwell's Animal Farm in 1945, which became a great mainstay of the company.
In the 1950s Secker and Warburg formed an economic alliance with William Heinemann Limited, which eventually took control of the company. As part of Heinemann, Secker and Warburg was taken over by the Octopus Group in 1985, then Reed International in 1987, and by Random House in 1997, where it continued to operate as an autonomous editorial unit.
