Faber & Faber: The Untold Story

Review A richly detailed biography of the distinguished British publishing house. -- Kirkus A uniquely close-up view of 20th-century literary history. It includes fascinating stories about now-canonical works ... Brimming with humanizing details and unforgettable literary personalities, Faber's compilation will be a delight for literature fans. -- Publishers Weekly Toby Faber, the grandson of the company's founder, relates this house's story as it celebrates its 90th anniversary. He does so ingeniously, compiling it from original documents -- letters, memos, catalogue copy, diary entries. It's a jigsaw puzzle that slowly comes together. The details here do consistently shine. -- New York Times The creation story of Faber is a striking drama ... Celebrating its 90th birthday this year, Faber boasts a phenomenal roster of successes ... What stays in the mind are some brilliant vignettes. -- Sunday Times Anyone with an interest in the history of English-language publishing won't want to miss this thoroughly charming history of the venerable British firm of Faber & Faber...a surprisingly jaunty, thoroughly readable look at literary publishing in the twentieth century. -- Booklist Ingeniously compiled. -- Evening Standard Product Description First published to celebrate Faber's 90th anniversary, this is the story of one of the world's greatest publishing houses - a delight for all readers who are curious about the business of writing. 'A striking drama.' SUNDAY TIMES 'Never less than fascinating.' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'This book will fascinate anyone with an interest in twentieth-century literature . . . a treasure trove.' SCOTSMAN 'The details here do consistently shine.' NEW YORK TIMES 'Ingeniously compiled . . . charming and quirky' EVENING STANDARD Told in its own words, this is the story of one of the world's greatest publishers, capturing the excitement, hopes and fears of the people who published and wrote the books that line our shelves today. Including archive material from T. S. Eliot, Samuel Beckett, Seamus Heaney, P. D. James, Kazuo Ishiguro and Philip Larkin, this is both a vibrant history and a hymn to the role of literature in all our lives. Review The creation story of Faber itself is a striking drama . . . What stays in the mind are some brilliant vignettes: Monteith writing to the Travellers' Club secretary to apologise for his lunch guest Thom Gunn's fringed leather jacket and cowboy boots ("Mr Gunn has for the last few years lived in California"); CP Snow's insufferable conceit ("Impress on your people that I am unusually readable for a serious novelist, and that quite simple people find it so"); and Geoffrey Faber, fire watching in the 1940s and, from the Faber roof, seeing London ablaze. ― Sunday Times A quirky history of the firm that has an unrivalled author roster . . . This is not a conventional chronological tale; Faber dips liberally and entertainingly into the company archives, reproduces letters and previously unseen photographs, as well as forays into jacket design and his own memories to paint a vivid picture of a publishing. ― New Statesman This book is more than self-serving corporate history, and that is largely down to Toby Faber's light touch . . . The result is a kind of epistolary history that has the considerable advantage of letting us hear from the authors in their own voices . . . The most compelling of these voices belongs to TS Eliot . . . Reading Eliot's correspondence with writers, his internal reports and his catalogue copy is never less than fascinating . . . [A] heartening story: how an independent family publisher with high literary standards survived and thrived by catering to a readership that wanted more than disposable fiction. For someone who loves literature, it is a consoling thought. ― Telegraph [Toby Faber] has managed to piece together the history of this peculiarly British institution in such a way as to lift the lid on some of the more surprising and, occasion