LOGOS Book Reviews

LOGOS BOOK REVIEWS TOM MASCHLER, once for two months. He was that today they are worth more PUBLISHER an extraordinary man who than one thousand times that Picador, London 2005 thought faster than almost sum!) Then followed National 284 pp anyone I encountered later in Service. It didn’t appeal to him. ISBN 135798642 life. That made him a difficult Like an earlier distinguished £20 boss, and in Britain he almost publisher, Sir Francis Meynell For his contemporaries Tom always worked on his own. He (he of the Nonesuch Press), Maschler was an iconic person- too had a powerful editorial Tom went on hunger strike for ality in the British publishing nose. Williams Brothers, the three weeks, and was released scene of the late 20th century. company he ran, first in from the forces as “physically As a tornado-like young man Germany and then in Austria unfit”. he re-established the medium- before the war, brought out Having tried to enter the sized publishing house, Hugh Lofting’s Dr Dolittle film world unsuccessfully, he Jonathan Cape, which was books in German translation heeded his father’s constant beginning to slumber after forty and, above all, Erich Kästner’s advice to enter publishing and years of triumphant existence. Emil and the Detectives. found himself a job with André By using his unusual gift for Maschler Senior venerated Deutsch, a considerable feat, smelling out successful, or Kästner and started a literary though initially he did it for no potentially successful, authors prize in his honour in the UK. pay at all. From there he moved from both sides of the Atlantic, So publishing was in Tom’s to MacGibbon & Kee as a Maschler coaxed Cape back blood, although I am not sure junior editor. After two years into its reputation as a leading how well he got on with his there he was invited by Allen literary imprint of its time. His father. It is strange, for example, Lane to work at Penguin as editorial instincts were that Tom never mentions that assistant fiction editor under harnessed to tremendous Jonathan Cape had been Hugh Eunice Frost. In her almost personal enthusiasm and, with Lofting’s original British permanent absence from the a well-run organizational publisher for generations. office, Tom, now aged twenty- machine behind him, the five, achieved considerable combination worked time and * * * * * responsibility. As well as time again for twenty years. selecting titles to reprint, he “I have often been asked After attending a Quaker began publishing contemporary to define” Maschler writes school near Reading called dramatists with great success. “what makes one decide on a Leighton Park, where he After eighteen months at particular book. This is a diffi- excelled at squash and tennis, Penguin, where he got on cult question to answer. The Maschler opted against a extremely well with Allen choice is so personal, so subjec- university career and spent Lane, Tom was offered and tive. There are no rules. I can three years travelling around accepted the post of literary say that for me the selection of the world, and eventually editor at Jonathan Cape. Lane a book and author is rarely for became a tour guide. This was furious. But who could have commercial reasons. To publish allowed him to make enough refused it? Tom joined Cape in well the publisher must be money to “buy first one, then May 1960, a month after Cape passionate about the book for two houses in Chalcot Cres- himself died. its own sake.” cent, at the foot of London’s Tom’s career, as described Tom’s father Kurt too was Primrose Hill”. (He records that in his book, consists of a series a publisher. I worked for him they cost him £1,400 each, and of short pieces each devoted to 160 LOGOS 16/3 © LOGOS Book reviews a single author on the Cape list. other firms later. Eventually the for the book trade, and for They read like a concatenation floating shares were bought by fiction publishing in particular, of school history essays, what Sidney Bernstein of Granada, a was to help to initiate Booker’s we called “gobbets” in my day. man of huge wealth, who also interest in launching a literary “Please write 150 words on the backed Maschler nobly. prize. Under Martyn Goff’s Battle of Oudenarde.” There is It was Tom who introduced benign leadership, the award little in the way of style; Graham C Greene to Cape to became a national event each certainly no wit, or continuity; look after finance, administra- year, which not only stimulated there is not much insight; and tion, the sales department and great media interest but also there seems no interest what- all the other important chores helped to sell thousands of ever in ideas. What could have that are essential concomitants copies of the winning books been a great literary feast is to successful publishing. Greene and the runners-up. merely a long recital of well- had an intriguing background. Some years into the whirl- known names: Doris Lessing, His father ran the BBC. His wind acquisition of novelists Arnold Wesker, Bruce uncle was Graham Greene, the and adult writers, Tom suddenly Chatwin, Salman Rushdie, novelist. His mother was a and unexpectedly took to Martin Amis, Julian Barnes, Ian literary agent. He was a director publishing children’s books, a McEwan, John Fowles and, over and later chairman of Greene field in which Cape, publishers in America, Joseph Heller of King, the family brewery. A of Arthur Ransome, the Dr Catch 22 fame (Tom bought the great committee man (Tom says Dolittle books by Hugh Lofting, rights for £250), Thomas that he never sat on any and others by Joan Aitken, Pynchon, Tom Wolfe and Kurt committee), Graham became already had a tradition. But Vonnegut who became a partic- chairman of the Publishers Tom went into the business ularly close friend – and so on Association, of the Trustees of sideways. He discovered a series and so on. the British Museum, and later of brilliant illustrators and Maschler says that luck of a large property company. married them to other people’s played a major role in his For nearly thirty years he and texts. The first illustrator was achievements, and later on it Tom worked in adjoining rooms John Burningham. His book, did indeed serve him well when in complete harmony. Tom Orka, a story about a goose born it came to the people with became chairman; Graham without feathers, was a run- whom he worked. Three stood managing director. away success. Dozens of other out in particular: firstly there If Wren Howard and later books by Burningham followed. was Wren Howard, Cape’s Graham C Greene were vital The next discovery was acting chairman after props to Tom’s existence in Quentin Blake, who not only Jonathan’s death (Howard was London, Bob Gottlieb – then of became what was virtually an sixty-seven), who protected Simon & Schuster and later of in-house illustrator but also Tom in a way hard to imagine Knopf – seems to have been his another very close friend of today. When the firm was guardian angel in New York, Tom’s. The “marriage” of Roald approached by three ex- assisted by a brilliant agent Dahl’s stories and Blake’s illus- Michael Joseph directors to buy called Candida Donadio. trations brought both men to a large slice of the firm’s shares Between them they steered the peaks of their careers. and they stipulated Tom’s Tom through the tangled web Children’s books became departure as a pre-condition of of US publishers and literati Tom’s great passion and his their bid, Wren Howard simply towards some of his most account of publishing them lifts closed the meeting. The rewarding authors. Tom recip- the book out of its dreary rut. If triumvirate he sent packing rocated with UK authors for posterity is to remember him, it were Peter Hebden, Charles Bob. It was a close and lasting will mostly be for this side of Pick and Roland Gant, all of friendship. his achievements. The quanti- whom achieved renown in A very good deed Tom did ties sold of titles such as Alan 161 LOGOS 16/3 © LOGOS.

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