Barnes & Noble acquired SparkNotes.com in 2001 for approx. $3,555,000.

TheSpark.com was launched January 7, 2001, as a literary website by four Harvard students. Most of TheSpark's users were high school and college students, and so the first six literature study guides (entitled "SparkNotes") were published on April 7, 1999 to increase popularity. The Sparksex.com website was launched on September 27, 2008. In 2000 the site was sold to iTurf Inc. The following year SparkNotes was bought by Barnes & Noble, and fifty literature study guides were chosen to be published in print form. When Barnes & Noble printed SparkNotes, they stopped selling their chief competitor, CliffsNotes. Until then, the only content on the website were literature study guides but in January 2003 The SparkNotes Test Prep, a practice test service, started. This project was followed by SparkCharts, meant to serve as reference sheets summarizing the topic, and No Fear Shakespeare, a transcription of Shakespeare's plays into modern English. They launched a new No Fear Literature, which transcribed classics into easy-to-understand everyday language for readers to use. Some examples include No Fear Huck Finn and No Fear Scarlet Letter.

SparkNotes has content and services related to the SAT, ACT, and AP tests, exercises for high school teachers, and a message board.

Barnes & Noble sells printed versions of the study guides in the United States and Chapters in Canada, in a format similar to that of CliffsNotes. This has led to them stopping the sale of CliffsNotes.

SparkNotes has moved into educational publishing with books like Poetry Classics and FlashKids, a series of educational books for K-8 students.

Sparknotes now includes a section that allows users to search up colleges, much like the program Collegeboard.com features.

Sparknotes also has an entire section devoted to other "life" aspects, called "SparkLife". Blogs, such as blogging Twilight by the much beloved Dan Bergstein, the advice blog from the all-knowing "Auntie Sparknotes", "Sparkler" contributed posts, and newly introduced "Open Threads" that allow members to chat with each other without specifically commenting on a post, extends Sparknotes into entertainment and social activites for the site's visitors and members.

Sparknotes has study guides for literature, with chapter summaries that may be used instead of reading the whole material. Teachers blame the website for being a cheating tool, saying that students use Sparknotes as a replacement for reading assignments or to cheat during tests, for example using cellphones with Internet access.

SparkNotes says it does not support academic dishonesty or plagiarism. Students can read the entire book, and then check SparkNotes to compare their own interpretation of the text with the SparkNotes analysis.