Charles C. Little and James Brown, partners in a Boston bookstore, formed a publishing company in 1837, which became Little, Brown and Company. An early project was a 96-volume series on the work of British poets. The company expanded into general publishing in the 1890s, and flourished in the 1930s and 40s. From the 1950s non-fiction publishing was expanded, particularly in the areas of textbooks, law and medicine.

In 1968 Little, Brown and Company was purchased by Time Incorporated. Little Brown and Company (UK) was founded in 1992, but renamed Time Warner Books UK in 2002, and Time Warner Book Group UK in 2004. Following the purchase of that group by Hachette Livre in 2006, Little, Brown again became the name of the group publishing in the UK. It publishes a range of general books under its own imprint and the imprints Abacus, Orbit, Atom, Time-Warner and Virago. The Little, Brown imprint is reserved for upmarket literary fiction, history, memoirs, science and travel.