A few decades ago, being published by Faber was for a poet like playing for Manchester United. Being added to their list now is not quite the same as signing for Manchester City.To mark the 90th anniversary of the independent publisher, Toby, grandson of the original Geoffrey (of which there was only one), has collected letters and documents from the archive to tell its story up to the end of the 1980's.
The cover illustration might lead us to expect correspondance about poetry. Those of us who wonder why Philip Larkin doesn't warrant a place at the table will find him sneaking furtively away on the back cover. While we do hear from T.S. Eliot and about several other poetry names, it is a book that could be better categorized under Business Studies rather than Literature. The story of the publishing house is more about its crises and survival, internal politics and balance sheets but we should be grateful that Toby concentrates as much as he does on poets because their range was much wider than that. If it was the Nursing Mirror that underwrote the early years, the books were balanced by the rights to Cats while the poetry was, as is usual, more about cachet than cash.
Two of the more memorable stories involve poets' apparel. Eliot was a visitor to the Faber country retreat, Ty Glyn in Cardiganshire, but it's not a cardigan he's advised to bring,
Tell him clothes are of no importance. Flannels (gray) and a white pair if he plays tennis and a bathing suit, if hot.
Sadly, no photograph is included. Perhaps it wasn't hot.
In 1961, Charles Montieth has invited Thom Gunn to lunch at the Traveller's Club, who turns up in a fringed leather jacket and cowboy boots. He writes to the club,
I'm very sorry indeed that my guest's dress at luncheon yesterday should have caused complaints
...
I had no idea he would arrive so bizarrely attired. Since he was educated at Bedales and Trinity College, Cambridge, I took it for granted that he would be aware of the ordinary social conventions in matters such as this.
He had been living in California, you see.
The book report dated 1957 on A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond shows how easy it is to make a costly mistake by simply 'not getting it', not unlike the story of the fool who turned down The Beatles.
But Eliot makes a good point vis a vis Nightwood by Djuna Barnes,
There is someting an author does once (if at all) in his generation that he can't ever do again. We can go on writing stuff that nobody else would write, if you like, but 'The Waste Land' and 'Ulysses' remain historic points.
It was a shame for the business that an upturn in book buying during the war was no good to them because the Excess Profit Tax took anything over and above their previous profit level to pay for the war effort.
If we are short-changed on stories about Thom Gunn, we need to be grateful for slightly more from Larkin, most notably in support of Barbara Pym and 'ordinary sane novels about ordinary sane people doing ordinary sane things' as opposed to his litany of genres that he regards as 'rubbish'.
One can write about Faber without reference to their corporate cover design for poetry but one can also choose to mention it at every opportunity. It is intended, of course, to be an indicator of quality. It is what it is, I suppose, but perhaps they don't have the same genius capacity as Roddy Lumsden whose covers are worth five more great poems in every book.
So, while being grateful to Toby for collecting these documents together, which are worthwhile and of great interest if you like that sort of thing, there are better books of poets' letters to read if you want to read poets' letters.