Heady, Champagne Years

Abstract

In most respects Max’s personal and publishing lives were never separate. He became godfather to Belinda McGill’s first child. He made room at The Bodley Head for the children of friends — in the sixties for Nigel Hollis and Charles Richardson, in the early seventies for Rosie Quayle — and when she finished at Chelsea College of Art, for Alexandra. He conducted business with the same kindness he showed people in private life. Contracts were agreed over drinks and written (if necessary) on the backs of envelopes. He had an almost unimaginable goodness of heart in trusting people, and was always astonished and hurt if they proved untrustworthy.