The Literature of the Book: Company Histories

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LOGOS The Literature of the Book: Company histories

Gordon Graham Many company histories celebrate longevity or at least use anniversaries as the occasions to Histories of publishing houses tend to reflect the publish. “One Hundred and Fifty Years of Great pride of those who built them and the devotion of Publishing”, however, sounds self-adulatory and those who worked in them. Most histories are can be discouraging to the disinterested reader. On published under the imprints of the houses they the other hand, today few publishing houses last describe, but it would be a mistake to dismiss them long enough to see the passage of time as an as exercises in vanity. There are many that have achievement. Even histories of brief flowering, or lessons for modern practitioners, most of whom are of being swallowed up, can be instructive or salu- too busy to read the histories of houses other than tary. Young independent houses now tend to get their own. It is indeed difficult to connect stories of sold before they are old enough to have a history, past glory and sympathetic accounts of dedicated and the corporations who acquire them have scant labours with next year’s budget. interest in history. Yet such histories reveal how the So is the genre of publishing history of interest purchased companies gained the position where only to historians? Not if we remember that those they became desirable “properties”, to be acquired who ignore history are condemned to repeat it. at multiples of sales or earnings which enrich their Cumulatively, a well-chosen selection of publishing owners. Acquirers ask for balance sheets and profit histories should be, and can be, a management and loss statements for the previous year, and for tool. The choice which follows is a selection of the next year’s budget. Financial analysts are seldom best writing, with the provisos that it should not be interested in the road travelled. self-indulgent and that it should be relevant and With the concentration of publishing, readable. I have set value also on books which are company histories are becoming fewer. They will revelatory (without being too personal) of the probably be seen to have reached their peak in the interplay among personalities, reveal the secret of third quarter of the 20th century when founders success when the story is positive, and do not and inheritors were retiring from or selling family disguise the road to decline when it is negative. businesses. Most histories concerned trade There is satisfaction in reading how a company publishing, and predated the age of the multina- is born and grows, and in the perception, made tional corporation and the Internet. A few became possible by historic distance, of how ideas take hold classics. They are almost all success stories. No one of people, rather than vice versa. writes about failure. This is left to future historians. The history of publishing is better documented The value of the genre is that it demonstrates that than those of other industries. The tool of record is the ingredients of successful publishing have not the tool that publishers manufacture and market. changed: embrace new ideas; look after your The whole Literature of the Book collection is a authors; be rigorous in editing and design; and record of the vitality of an industry built by indi- vigorous in the marketplace. Looking at backlists, viduals devoted to and absorbed by their enter- their own or others, today’s publishers should be prises, many of them to the point that they are prompted to reflect on whose shoulders they are innocently unaware that others are doing the same. standing.

Gordon Graham

BALLOU, Ellen B The Building of the House, itable) phenomenon in the second half. Houghton Mifflin, 1970 MOORE, John Hammond Wiley, 150 Years of A rich tapestry of authors and editors and Publishing, John Wiley, 1982 their relationships in one of America’s great trade Shows how choosing an expanding field and publishing houses. sticking to it is the recipe both for success and DE VRIES, Johan Four Windows of Opportu- intelligent retention of family ownership. nity, Wolters Kluwer, 1995 MORGAN, Charles The House of Macmillan A scholarly study of the growth of Wolters (1843-1943), Macmillan, 1944 Kluwer, including an account of its successful Not a definitive history, but a dramatic story defence against takeover by Elsevier. of the personalities who originated and built one DUSSEAU, John L An Informal History of W of the enduring imprints of Britain and America. B Saunders Company, W B Saunders, 1988 NORRINGTON, A L P Blackwell’s 1879- A readable history of America’s leading 1979, The History of a Family Firm, Blackwell, 1983 medical publishing house, including a fascinating A bookseller which became a publisher, chapter on how founders coped with publishing spread worldwide, became prosperous and The Kinsey Report on human sexuality. remained family-owned. EXMAN, Eugene The Brothers Harper, Harper NOWELL-SMITH, Simon The House of & Row, 1965 Cassell 1848-1958, Cassell, 1958 A case study of how the four Harper brothers Dated, but throws light on 19th-century foun- built a publishing house as a cultural centre in a dation of 20th-century publishing through period when America was expanding explosively. imprints still surviving in 21st. GRAHAM, W Gordon Butterworths, History PETERSEN, Clarence The Bantam Story, of a Publishing House 2/e, Butterworths, 1997 Bantam Books, 1970 Revision and updating of Kay Jones’s 1979 A paperback about a paperback house illus- edition. Shows how law publishing faces the same trates concisely one of the great publishing revolu- obstacles as, but yields somewhat better rewards tions of the 20th century. than, other kinds of publishing. SARKOWSKI, Heinz and GÖTZE, Heinz HODGES, Sheila Gollancz, The Story of a Springer Verlag, History of a Scientific Publishing Publishing House 1928-1978, Victor Gollancz, 1978 House, 2 volumes, Springer, 1992 Inseparable from its eponymous founder, this Handsome, heavy and exhaustive history of is a story of innovation and enterprise with a polit- Germany’s leading science publisher. ical mission. SATTERFIELD, Jay The World’s Best Books: HOWARD, Michael S Jonathan Cape, Taste, Culture, and the Modern Library, University Publisher, Jonathan Cape, 1971 of Massachusetts Press, 2002 How a famous imprint founded in 1921 was A careful history of the Modern Library from built by its founder and his partner, G Wren its infancy to its decline recounted with genuine Howard. verve. Offers a first-rate insight into the state of KOGAN, Herman The Great E B, University the US book trade from roughly World War I to of Chicago Press, 1958 the mid-1960s. Chronicles for the general reader the origins, SILVERMAN, Al (ed) The Book of the Month, development, trials and triumphs of the Ency- Little, Brown, 1986 clopaedia Britannica. A collection of essays adding up not only to a LAMBERT, J W and RATCLIFFE, M The history of The-Book-of-the-Month Club but a Bodley Head 1887-1987, The Bodley Head, 1987 commentary on the literary tastes of America in A British imprint with a star-studded author- the 20th century. list. ST JOHN, John William Heinemann: A McALEER, Joseph Passion’s Fortune, The Century of Publishing, William Heinemann, 1990 Story of Mills & Boon, Oxford University Press, A case study of a distinguished imprint: inde- 1999 pendence, benign takeovers and finally absorption. How a modest trade publisher in the first half UNWIN, Rayner George Allen & Unwin, A of the 20th century became a cultural (and prof- Remembrancer, Merlin Unwin Books, 1999