While no date for the founding of Arrow Books has yet been ascertained, the earliest publications identified as being published by Arrow Books Limited, London are in 1959. These include new editions of Fergus Hume's 1886 novel The Mystery of a Hansom Cab and Gallipoli by Alan Moorhead, first published in 1956 (qq.v.). By 1963 Arrow had become a paperback imprint of British publishing company the Hutchinson Group. It continued to operate as an imprint following Hutchinson's merger with Century Publishing in 1985 (which created Century Hutchinson), and that company's subsequent acquisition by the Random House Publishers Group in 1989.
Some first edition publications of Australian authors by the Arrow Books (London) include Carry on Emmanuelle (1978) by Lance Peters and The Hot and Copper Sky (1981) by Bruce Stewart. By the early 1990s Arrow was publishing directly out of Australia through its offices in Milsons Point (Sydney). Among the first local publications were The Pawn (1991) by Ian Wynne and Richard Neville's Playing Around (1991, Sunrise (1991) by Sylvia Story, Anna's Gold (1992) by Julie Harris, and Kit Moodie's 1992 crime thriller Dead Set-Up. Other Australian authors to have their works given first publication by Arrow Books since the early 1990s include Bruce Venables, Susan Geason, Jock Blair, Venero Armanno, Caíseal Mór, Kim Wilkins, Kate Forsyth, James Tatham, Sean Williams and Lily Sommers.
As a Random House imprint Arrow has also published the paperback Star Wars titles in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. Hardback publications are handled by Century, while associated factual books (such as The Making of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith) are published by Ebury Press.
Arrow Science Fiction, a publisher's series for Arrow Books, is believed to have been operating for a brief period in the mid-1970s (ca. 1976).
