Is publishing a "sunset industry"?
This is a question that the editors and teachers of the Ashin family are often asked.
The English modernist poet and Nobel Laureate in Literature T.S. Eliot wrote in a letter to publisher Jeffrey Faber:
If I were an outside investor, but I knew the inside of the publishing industry, I would never have invested a penny in the industry.
Despite this, Eliot resigned from the bank and, along with Jeffrey Faber, threw himself into the "shrinking west" industry.
No one would have thought that these two people would later join forces to create the golden age of 20th-century English literature.
And our story has to start from nearly 100 years ago.
We published the book
At the very least, it's about showing some value
In 1923, at the age of 34, Jeffrey Faber was still a muddled, accomplished man.
Faber, who had just lost his job, asked a friend to find a way out — I heard that a science publishing house was recruiting a publisher's chairman.
In his letters, he spoke emphatically about his ambitions: to first publish a series of popular books on the law, to make a large sum of money by the huge sales of these books, and then to use those funds to find literary masters and publish their works.
However, after joining the company, the best-selling law crash books in the "big pie" did not even have a shadow. What Faber wanted to do was the literary publishing of his dreams. Fortunately, in 1925, he was introduced to T.S. Eliot.
T.S. Elliott
By this time, Eliot was already well-known and had published poetry under Virginia Woolf. In a letter to Eliot, Faber wrote:
"I don't want to paint you a pie with empty mouth. But I firmly believe that as long as the road is right, we can see the dawn. ”
Luckily, he took favor of Faber, and the two hit it off, and soon after, he received the first work from Eliot.
The name of this work is called "Wasteland".
Faber-Faber Publishing House 90th Anniversary Edition "Wasteland"
Faber decided not only to publish Eliot's poetry, but also to hire him as a literary consultant—something they might not have imagined at the time that the history of the British publishing industry would change.
At this time, the two who decided to fight side by side only determined a publishing bottom line: "The books we produce are at least to show some value, if not the most respected values on the market." ”
"Genius Catcher" from Faber
It is this bottom line of publishing that allows the editors of Faber-Faber Press to always discern the many submissions.
In 1953, Charles Montith, who had just joined Faber-Faber, took a train to Oxford and, to pass the time, grabbed the top bundle from a pile of manuscripts sent by writers.
His novel, Strangers From Within, has been given the harshest assessment by a Faber reviewer: "Garbage and boring." Meaningless. Rejection. ”
But when Charles Montith read it patiently, he found that there was so much interesting in the novel.
He was ecstatic and immediately wrote to the author, William Golding, expressing his willingness to publish it.
Under their discussion, the title of the work was changed from "Strangers Deep Inside" to "Weeping Children", and finally, a director of Faber Publishing House gave advice - changing the name of the novel to "Lord of the Flies".
First edition of Lord of the Flies
Later in the story, I believe you have guessed: with this novel, Golding became famous in one battle, and finally won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the luxurious writers of Faber-Faber Publishing House also added another literary hero.
In 1983, William Golding (first from right) received the Nobel Prize in Literature
Good luck didn't end there, and on the last day of the 1970s, 20-something Kazuo Ishiguro solemnly submitted his manuscript "Distant Mountain Shadows" to Faber.
Since then, most of Ishiguro's works, including "The Long Day Will End" and "Clara and the Sun", have been published by Faber.
Kazuo Ishiguro
In addition to them, Günter Grass, Philip Larkin, Ezra Pound, Harold Pinter, Shemeth Heaney...
Thirteen Nobel laureates, as well as many famous writers in the history of English literature, were discovered by Faber-Faber Publishing House and signed for publication.
It's harder to succeed than after publication
is successfully published
But Faber-Faber wasn't always so lucky.
In 1944, T.S. Elliott received a manuscript of George Orwell's Animal Farm, in which he praised "this is an outstanding work."
However, at this time, the Soviet Union was an ally of Britain on the battlefield, and because of the political situation, he declined the publication of the book, and in this way, Faber-Faber Press lost with Animal Farm and later "1984".
Equally regrettable is James Joyce's famous Ulysses.
Ulysses was obscure and contained a lot of pornography, and when Joyce serialized the novel, he could not even find a publisher in Britain who was willing to publish it without abridgement, and after a period of serialization in american magazines, he was also ordered by the court to stop serialization.
The book was handled by T.S. Eliot throughout the book, and even released the interpretation book to test the waters.
However, after traveling around asking for opinions from many parties, he could only confess to James Joyce: "The advice of the consultants is that we will definitely be prosecuted and severely punished - the president of the publishing house may be sentenced to 6 months in prison..."
As a result, Faber could only watch as the genius stream-of-consciousness novel "Ulysses" was snatched up by other publishers and he pounced.
However, in 1960, the news of the successful re-publication of "Madame Chatterley's Lover" inspired the entire British publishing industry, and the novel, which had been banned for 32 years, finally took off its "vulgar" hat and strode into the temple of world literature.
And Faber-Faber Publishing House is also ready to take advantage of this east wind to do a big job, and the protagonist they selected this time is Samuel Beckett's dramatic work - "Waiting for Godot".
This play, which in the past could not pass censorship, was a huge hit as soon as it was published.
Beckett himself, however, was dissatisfied: some passages in the book had been censored and deleted in a mess. But in fact, where there is no compromise, the publisher can already be said to have plucked up courage - such as "fuck" throughout the text.
Although the word "fuck" in books affects library and bookstore purchases, and in neighboring Ireland, publication is banned, omitting these words will definitely affect the entire work: you can't force a leper to speak honorifics all day.
Therefore, Faber-Faber Press still decided to print the "fuck" in the script in its entirety.
Unfortunately, the timid printing factory did something in the proof: changed the "fuck" to a safer "f---".
Publisher of "Power Generation with Love"
Be an explorer who arrives at the land of dreams
Although Faber-Faber Publishing House has almost become synonymous with "the highest standard of literary publishing" in Britain, since it is engaged in the publishing industry, it is inevitable that there will be moments of stretching.
Nearly thirty years after Faber and Eliot fought side by side, the two reached retirement age, but the publisher's financial crisis hung over the company like a shadow. In difficult times, the two were in the same boat, and Elliot even proposed to take the initiative to cut wages.
T.S. Elliott in the office of Faber Press, this photograph was taken the day after his death on January 4, 1965
"If one day, ordinary novels written about ordinary people doing ordinary things cannot be published by a publishing house, it will be a great shame."
Those who have never achieved much, they are neither beautiful nor lucky, but try to live their best within their limited range of activities; but it is these characters who can see the so-called 'grand' life experience in the autumn leaves are not worthy of envy.
These works do not find a shadow of self-pity, despair or romanticism, but a sense of realism and even humor...
In my opinion, a responsible publisher should give full support to such works. ”
At the age of 92, Faber-Faber Press, still active at the forefront of publishing, is an explorer who has endured many hardships and finally arrived in the land of dreams.
Jeffrey Faber was convinced: "If the book is good enough, it's worth losing money on it." ”
And Faber-Faber press also used a straight waist bar to prove to the newcomers that even in the difficult times of World War II or the economic depression, intellectual communicators can still be rewarded.
As the grandson of the founder of Faber-Faber Publishing House, Toby Faber visited the private archives of Faber and the major writers' heritage committees that were not open to the public, and sorted out more than 600 letters and more than 70 illustrations, and consulted many unpublished archives such as correspondence between writers and editors, founder's diaries, internal memoranda, minutes of council meetings, and financial statements.
In the book "Between Genius and Genius", which celebrates the 90th anniversary of the gift publishing house, he vividly recreates the path taken by this legendary publishing house.
In this book, you will see the story of Faber and the publishing anecdotes of the great writers who were brilliant in the golden age of publication, and experience the hardships and uniqueness behind the legends of a publishing house.
As the reader of this book commented:
"This book is not a biography of a successful publisher, but rather the process of how to make the niche cause of publishing a success. Successful publishing is much more difficult than successful publishing, you need to judge the situation, but also need to adhere to the value. ”
The legendary story of the "Genius Newsroom"
Between Genius and Genius
-End-
2022.2.16
Editor: Sangsang | Review: Yoyo