From Bow Street to the World’s Bookshops

Abstract

From the time Max took the reins in 1957 and T. Werner Laurie was added to the original deal, The Bodley Head group had grown. In early 1962 the Catholic publisher Burns & Oates had been added along with Hollis & Carter, its lay affiliate, who published biography, history and well-known books on sailing and navigation. In June that year Max had bought the complete shareholding of Putnam & Company, including the interest in it of G.P. Putnam’s Sons of NY. The British company was owned by Percy Lubbock’s nephew, Roger, who continued as managing director; John Huntington, the nephew of the previous owner Constance Huntington, took over sales. The Putnam list included the work of Washington Irving, Mikhail Sholokhov, Erich Maria Remarque, Dylan Thomas, L.P. Hartley, Marie Stopes, Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen), Bernard Berenson, and the music critic Ernest Newman. With Putnam came Bowes & Bowes, the academic publisher from Cambridge (whose directors were Roger Lubbock, Dennis Payne and Michael Oakeshott), and Nattali & Maurice, a specialist publisher that brought an almost complete set of copperplates for William Daniell’s A Voyage Round Great Britain and a renowned list of aeronautical books. Soon Lubbock and Huntington resigned and Max reorganized the companies, bringing Putnam staff members in to The Bodley Head. Rene Antink became his orders clerk, and Fred Miller took charge of distribution and was soon called by Max ‘my computer’.