Review
"A namesake and descendant delivers a richly detailed biography of the distinguished British publishing house.After World War I, returning veteran Geoffrey Faber found himself relieved from a job for which he didn't have much talent, running a brewery, and talked his way into a medical publishing house, setting about diversifying the list with a literary magazine, works of fiction, and "legal cram books." While the last never came about, writes Faber (Faberge's Eggs: The Extraordinary Story of the Masterpieces That Outlived an Empire, 2008, etc.), Geoffrey eventually shaped a list dominated by literature, publishing many of the greats. As he wrote to a friend, the company's new premises on Russell Square provided an incentive "to build up as fine a publishing business as we can to inhabit it!" As the author writes in this documentary biography of the company, Geoffrey was fortunate in taking on the American poet T.S. Eliot, so much an Anglophile as to be more English than the English, as an early editor. Eliot often rejected submissions, but he also encouraged work by poets such as W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood, helping make Faber a major presence in the literary world from the 1930s on. At the same time, other editors and directors brought in notable writers such as William Golding, who delivered a manuscript that he called A Cry of Children, soon to be superseded by a Faber editor's much more memorable Lord of the Flies. The author isn't shy about sharing the fiscal details of publishing, opening with the old adage that the way to make a small fortune in the business is to start with a large one. He also provides insight into the publishing work of rock legend Pete Townshend, who, despairing of the future of his band, came to work for Faber & Faber in 1983, writing what one colleague called "good old-fashioned publishing reports, very serious, very diligent reports on the books we're considering."Students of modernist literature and publishing history will find this a pleasure. "― Kirkus
"Culled from 90 years’ worth of correspondence, board minutes, and other material from the Faber & Faber archives, this compilation from Faber (Fabergé’s Eggs), the company’s former managing director (and its founder’s grandson), offers a uniquely close-up view of 20th-century literary history. It includes fascinating stories about now-canonical works, such as how Lord of the Flies was published by the company despite being rejected by a reader’s note that dismissed the initial manuscript as an “absurd & uninteresting fantasy about the explosion of an atom bomb on the colonies.” However, its greatest value lies in revealing the personalities of Faber & Faber’s key figures, including Geoffrey Faber, who founded it in 1929; despite the company’s name, he had no partner, but simply reasoned, as a friend advised him, “You can’t have too much of a good thing.” Perhaps most notably, the book gives a new view of longtime Faber & Faber director T.S. Eliot, who comes across as humane, witty, and deeply dedicated to the company, and whose friendship with Geoffrey Faber emerges as one of the 20th century’s great unsung literary partnerships. Brimming with humanizing details and unforgettable literary personalities, Faber’s compilation will be a delight for literature fans."―Agent: Peter Straus, Rogers Coleridge & White.(Aug.), Library Journal
"The persistence of Faber & Faber, which is now celebrating ninety years as an independent publisher, makes for a remarkable case study.... The Faber story certainly speaks volumes about the mix of passion, shrewdness, and luck that it takes to keep such an operation afloat." ―The New Yorker
Review
***"Anyone with an interest in the history of English-language publishing won't want to miss this thoroughly charming history of the venerable British firm of Faber & Faber, which is celebrating its ninetieth anniversary. The story of how Faber has managed to remain independent for nearly a century―and during a time of rampant consolidation in the industry―has much to do with luck, of course, but also with determined resilience, especially from the founder, Geoffrey Faber, who died in 1961. For most readers, though, the main point of interest here will be the substantial role in Faber's history played by its most famous editor, T. S. Eliot, who was hired by Faber in the twenties and whose stature as a poet and critic gave the firm instant credibility. Faber's reputation as a cutting-edge poetry publisher only grew as Eliot brought W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Philip Larkin, and Ted Hughes to the house during the next several decades. But Eliot's greatest contribution came later, after his death, with the sale to Andrew Lloyd Webber of the rights to Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats―the eventual success of the musical Cats did more than any individual book to keep the company solvent and independent through the decades. Author Tony Faber, Geoffrey's grandson, wisely eschews a straightforward narrative history in favor of an oral-history approach, drawing liberally on correspondence between publishers, editors, and authors, but also supplying valuable connective tissue in the form of brief but often witty introductions and commentary. The result is a surprisingly jaunty, thoroughly readable look at literary publishing in the twentieth century."― Bill Ott, Booklist
About the Author
As the grandson of Faber’s founder, Toby Faber grew up steeped in the company’s books and its stories. He was Faber’s managing director for four years and remains a non-executive director and chairman of sister company Faber Music. He has written two celebrated works of non-fiction, Stradivarius and Fabergé’s Eggs, and his first novel, Close to the Edge, will be published by Muswell Press in 2019. He lives in London with his wife and two daughters.
