An outspoken memoir from one of publishing's greats.
Born into the most conservative of establishment families, John Calder has always gone his own way - seeking out literary genius and creating a greater awareness of the world we inhabit. His publishing programme contained a large proportion of the leading writers of the twentieth century, including Samuel Beckett, Henry Miller, William S. Burroughs, Eugene Ionesco, Luigi Pirandello, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Marguerite Duras, Heinrich Boll and such British authors as Howard Barker, Edward Bond, Steven Berkoff and Ann Quin. Anecdotes abound in these memoirs about Bertrand Russell, Alger Hiss, Graham Greene, J.B. Priestley, Jo Grimond and dozens of others whom the author encountered in his activities, both within and outside of publishing. This book is too outspoken to make many friends, but it will open eyes and upset apple carts. Never a saint, Calder is as frank about his own failings as of those of others.