The Maverick
George Weidenfeld and the Golden Age of Publishing
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- $26.99
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- $26.99
Publisher Description
The captivating story of the famed publisher George Weidenfeld, from his struggles as an Austrian-Jewish refugee in London to his rise as a world-renowned literary figure.
After arriving in London just before World War Two as a penniless Austrian-Jewish refugee, George Weidenfeld went on to transform not only the world of publishing but the culture of ideas. The books that he published include momentous titles such as Lolita, Double Helix, The Group, and The Hedgehog and the Fox, with authors he championed ranging from Joan Didion, Mary McCarthy, JD Salinger, and Edna O’Brien to Henry Miller, Harold Wilson, Saul Bellow, and Henry Kissinger. His role as publisher brought him into the orbit of influential figures such as George Bush, Ann Getty, Donald Trump, and LBJ.
In this first biography, Thomas Harding provides a full, unvarnished, and at times difficult history of this complex and fascinating character. Throughout his long career, he was written about in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time Magazine, Vanity Fair, and other publications. Was he, as described by some, the “greatest salesperson,” “the world’s best networker,” “the publisher’s publisher,” and “a great intellectual”? Was his lifelong effort to be the world’s most famous host a cover for his desperate loneliness? Who, in fact, was the real George Weidenfeld and how did he rise so successfully within the ranks of New York and London society?
Drawing on author correspondence, internal memos, and other documents buried deep in the secret publishing files of Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Harding crafts a portrait of the publisher's life that is inextricable from the efforts and intricacies of putting a book into the world. Structured around twenty books associated with George Weidenfeld, and intercut with explorations of contemporary concerns such as cancel culture, the right to publish, freedom of speech, and separating the art from the artist, The Maverick tells the captivating story behind the life of this iconic publisher.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Biographer Harding (The House by the Lake) provides a revealing look behind the scenes of U.K. publisher Weidenfeld and Nicolson focused on its iconoclastic cofounder George Weidenfeld (1919–2016). A champion of "the mavericks, the scandalous, the subversive," Weidenfeld's career spanned from the original British version of Lolita in 1955 to Keith Richards's 2010 rock and roll memoir Life. Harding takes an intriguing approach by looking at Weidenfeld's life story through the lens of specific books he published; each chapter is named for a key title from Weidenfeld and Nicolson's catalog, including Mary McCarthy's novel The Group and James Watson's scientific memoir The Double Helix. Along the way, readers are treated to firsthand accounts of author versus publisher spats, including Saul Bellow's gripes about cover design, and insights into the challenges of managing international rights for a surefire bestseller. Though Harding touches on Weidenfeld's personal life, he focuses more on deals, negotiations, and prima donna authors than on analyzing his subject's motivations. Still, this "investigation into publishing, including its dark arts" will leave readers with a vivid picture of the working life of a publisher.