The writer and editor promoted Joseph Conrad and DH Lawrence and deserves recognition as a great literary tastemakerThe first question worth asking of Helen Smith’s A-grade biography of Edward Garnett (1868‑1937) is just how many manuscripts passed across the desk of this publishers’ reader in his lifetime. Very little hard data is vouchsafed, but Smith estimates that, in 1917, John Lane was forwarding him between 400 and 500 items a year. A decade later, the contents of the weekly parcel sent to his house in Kent is put at eight to 10. All this suggests that in a 50-year career, beginning with the firm of T Fisher Unwin and ending with Jonathan Cape, Garnett may have worked his way through 20,000 unpublished novels – 150m words, say, forming a pile that, if laid end to end, would stretch from one side of central London to the other.Naturally there were times when this decades-long sojourn in what George Gissing called the Valley of the Shadow of Books became oppressive and Garnett began to feel that he was pouring his immortal spirit down the drain a pint at a time. A rather plaintive letter survives from November 1910 in which he informs John Galsworthy: “I get very low sometimes as to the secondhand sort of existence that is implied in the game and its sequelae.” But there was gold lurking among the dross, and a list of the famous names that he turned up in the slush pile would be enough to fill a literary Who’s Who. The Nobel-winning Galsworthy, Conrad and the... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2017-11-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Lisa Campbell A complaint against a W H Smith advert for the Richard and Judy Book Club has not been upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority. The television broadcast, promoting the husband-and wife teams exclusive deal with W H Smith to run Richard and Judys Book Club,... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams The Publishers Association [PA] has attacked the culture secretary's decision to allow communications watchdog Ofcom to "delay" the Digital Economy Act. Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced yesterday [1st February] that Ofcom is to assess whether the Act's... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Apple has reportedly rejected Sony's reader app from the App store for selling content within the app and letting customers make purchases outside the App store (such as within the Sony Reader Store, according to The New York Times. Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2011-02-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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One month before controversial portions of the USA Patriot Act are set to expire, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) last week reintroduced a reauthorization bill that would restore protections for reader privacy that were eliminated by the Act in 2001. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-02-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Hodder & Stoughton has acquired the account of the life of "real life Charlotte Gray". Pearl Witherington was the only female agent in the Special Operations Executive to run her own network in France during the second world war. Hodder non-fiction publisher... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-01-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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