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LOGOS The Pergamon phenomenon 1951–1991: A memoir of the Maxwell years Brian Cox International scientific, technical and medical pub- lishing (known familiarly as STM since its practi- tioners formed the international association with that acronym in 1968) was effectively born in the wake of World War II. Before then, most English- language STM books and journals had been pub- lished by learned societies and were almost exclusively devoted to works published for their Retiring after forty-seven years members. War-impelled research far outstripped the in the publishing business, Brian capacity of this genteel publishing industry. A new Cox reflects on the thirty-one of breed of publishers saw the commercial possibilities in a business which, they foresaw correctly, would these years he spent working for set enviable standards of growth and profitability in the late Robert Maxwell. Cox the succeeding decades. began his career in bookselling I began my working life as a bookseller with B H Blackwell of Oxford with B H Blackwell of Oxford in 1951. Although I did not know it, the company to which I would be and joined Pergamon Press in devoting more than thirty years of my professional 1960 when that company moved life was also founded in that year. The founder was to a stately mansion in the same a Czech immigrant who had achieved an impressive city. As the manager for command of the English language in the British marketing and fulfilment of army during the war and immediately after the war had acquired a background in print and publishing Pergamon’s scientific journals, he with the Allied Control Commission in Berlin. In saw both the meteoric rise of that 1960, fresh from completing my National Service form of publishing in the ’60s in an infantry regiment, an experience not very rel- and ’70s and the economic and evant to a career in bookselling and publishing, I was at least able to understand Captain Robert electronic challenges it faced in Maxwell’s rather autocratic management style. He the ’80s and ’90s. had christened his company Pergamon Press after the city of Pergamon in Asia Minor. The colophon was a reproduction of a Greek coin from that city. Although Pergamon was an upstart com- pany, it sprang from a partnership between two ven- erable imprints – Butterworths (founded in 1818) and Springer (founded in 1842) – who together had founded a company in 1948, principally to import Springer Verlag publications into the UK. In an early example of a management buy-out, Robert Maxwell, who had been the Butterworth/Springer

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manager, purchased the company in 1951 for worked in a succession of different businesses. £13,000. He also acquired the services of an Aus- Maxwell seemed to be omnipresent, eternally rest- trian, Doctor Paul Rosbaud, who had been with less and unpredictable. But he had a profound effect Springer Verlag, and who became Editorial Director on scientific publishing which the debacle of the of Pergamon. I was hired as subscription manager Maxwell Communications Corporation after his and worked directly for Maxwell for thirty-one years death has eclipsed from history. until he sold Pergamon to Elsevier NV for £440m. No one could have called him a good del- Maxwell was quite a different character in egater. He was quite capable of redrafting a telex those early days from the much-hated tycoon he message from me to a colleague in the New York was to become. Pergamon was the child of his tim- office and then, on his visit to the US a few days ing, vision and drive. His European provenance was later, assisting that same colleague with his reply to an asset in a business which was becoming increas- me. He had a magical way of cultivating large num- ingly international, as indeed was to be demon- bers of academic authors and editors, initially strated by Elsevier, which was a purely Dutch through his personal contacts and then maintaining company in 1951 and became the largest STM pub- these contacts through ghosted correspondence lisher in the world. Even some of the publishers from other directors. Distinguished scholars who started in the United States, which were to become had seldom met Maxwell, but who received regular famous STM imprints, such as Academic Press, telephone calls from him and correspondence over Interscience or Plenum, were the brainchilds of his signature, regarded him as a confidant. European emigrants. He had one habit in common with Sir The international reach of STM publishing Basil Blackwell, my first employer in the book was already evident in the list of journals and books trade. They both loved to sort the incoming mail as which Maxwell acquired in 1951. It consisted of six soon as it arrived and then to prowl round the serials and two textbooks. Five of the six serials are still office talking to staff at all levels. Neither of them in the Pergamon list today. And one of the two text- had much use for formal meetings. Maxwell books, Metallurgical Thermochemistry, is still published appeared to make all decisions personally, but fre- by Reed Elsevier under the imprint of Butterworths. quently he consulted with those who would be The secret of Pergamon’s growth was the required to carry out his decisions. He thus attained scientific journal. Most new Pergamon journal title a level of rapport between directors and staff which opened with the same three words: International many publishing managements favouring formal Journal of …... Over forty such journals (inciden- meetings were unable to achieve. tally a bibliographic nightmare for librarians) still His office at Headington Hill Hall was appear in the Pergamon list. the largest room in the building, with the exception Before I joined, Pergamon had been of the marble-floored entrance hall. His desk was located in Fitzroy Square in London’s West End. In placed diagonally in a corner at the maximum dis- 1959, it began to migrate to Headington Hill Hall, tance from the door. When you opened the door, a stately country home which Robert Maxwell had you had to travel across an acre of carpet before adroitly rented from the City of Oxford. It had been coming face to face with him. If you knew the built in the 1850s for the Morrell family, who had answer to his first question, you would be offered a been local brewers. During the war, it had been a chair and a cup of coffee. If not, you would be kept military hospital. By 1959, it was in an advanced standing for the duration of the session. But these state of disrepair. Captain and Mrs Maxwell seemed minor foibles in the years (up till 1980) restored the building and moved into it with their when Pergamon Press was Robert Maxwell’s pri- rapidly growing family. Publishing staff shared parts mary business interest. You felt you were at the cen- of the Hall and also worked in the stable block and tre of a world, and never left his office without the the huts which had been built in the grounds as adrenalin running faster. part of the wartime hospital. Maxwell’s foibles often ran in the direc- Although I worked continuously in Head- tion of operating economies. Pergamon in those ington Hill Hall for all my thirty-one years, I felt I days was a very profitable company, and one of the

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