The Truth About Publishing

by Stanley Unwin

Reprint of the much revised 7th edition (1960) of Sir Stanley's classic treatise. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Genres: Biography

352 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1960

About the author

Sir Stanley Unwin (1884 – 1968) was a British publisher, founder of the George Allen and Unwin house in 1914. This published serious and sometimes controversial authors like Bertrand Russell and Mahatma Gandhi.

He lived for some years in Handen Road in Lee in south-east London. His niece was the children's writer Ursula Moray Williams

In 1936 J. R. R. Tolkien submitted The Hobbit for publication, and Unwin paid his ten-year-old son Rayner Unwin a few pence to write a report on the manuscript. Rayner's favourable response prompted Unwin to publish the book. Once the book became a success Unwin asked Tolkien for a sequel, which eventually became The Lord of the Rings.

Reviews

[Barbara Brydges · Rating 3 out of 5]

I confess I picked up this book because of a distant family connection, but I actually found it a quite interesting account of what it was to be a publisher in England from pre-World War One until the mid-sixties. This is not a tell all book, either about Stanley Unwin’s own life, nor about the authors with whom he worked, but he certainly writes about the business challenges he faced: from bureaucrats (such as those who instituted severe paper rationing for established publishers during WWII), outdated censorship legislation and authors determined to believe that publishers were cheating them. The many major authors published by Allen & Unwin, and his effort to visit EVERY bookseller in the many countries he visited around the world show why he was successful.

[Initially NO · Rating 2 out of 5]

Of course it is out of date, sexist etc, and publishing isn't nearly so expensive as it used to be. The last 20 pages do offer some of the chinks in publisher prejudice though, that still exist.

It's a history of publishing that most people wouldn't read beyond the 1st 20 pages, unless they had a vested interest in understanding the publication's industry, the tradition it is steeped in, and the stalwarts of production that are no longer in existence.