Inspiring Older Readers
Faber & Faber: The Untold Story by Toby Faber
Books published by Faber & Faber are such an integral part of my reading life and identity that I simply can’t imagine what the world would look like if they’d never existed. When I first started buying and reading books in quantity I never questioned their status as purveyors of ‘quality’ literature – by buying a book from Faber, even if you’d never heard of the author, you knew you were buying something important and worth your time and effort. In my mind, the publishing house was a solid point of consistency – unmovable and unimpeachable – and always reliable.
Typically for a young man excited by discovering books for the first time, I never even stopped to think that Faber & Faber might have a more complex, even precarious history of its own and that there may have been times when it could have disappeared as a viable business before I even became aware of them.
Toby Faber, the grandson of the founder, Geoffrey Faber, has written (or maybe more accurately ‘compiled’) a book that graphically depicts just how rocky the road was – and probably remains – in the journey it has made. The author has decided to tell the story of the publishing house in quite an unusual way by making extensive use of Faber’s astonishing archive of correspondence that has been kept and ordered so systematically that it can be constructed into a narrative that tells the story of the firm from 1929 – 1990.
Toby Faber’s own words are few but make up the essential linking passages between letters and memos passing between the key players. What he does brilliantly is to edit the correspondence for length and then stitch them together to provide a sense of narrative direction without compromising the voices of the letter writers. And there’s some absolutely fascinating stuff here as the company struggles to establish its identity, as company directors come and go and key individuals play their part. Then there are the voices of the authors who approach Faber to publish their books or other writers they pursued.
As I’ve indicated, the use of correspondence has its strengths – the immediacy of the message and the genuine tone of voice captured on paper without anyone else interpreting the meaning gives the narrative authenticity. I very much like, for example, the inclusion of letters that are full of irritation and bad temper that then require apologetic letters by return when the sender has cooled off. But there are also drawbacks to the epistemological approach because it can also become wearing and one-paced – there are times when you start to crave a more analytical retrospective prose assessment rather than being left in the immediate moment of the correspondence.
In the end, however, the real joy of this book will be the anecdotes to be found in the letters that pass between publisher and authors. The mistakes, the triumphs, the redrafts, the rejections – there are some absolute hoots. Here, for example, is T.S.Eliot in his role as a Commissioning Director for Faber, tossing away the the chance of taking on George Orwell when his first book Down And Out In Paris and London was submitted and compounding that by rejecting Animal Farm:
TS Eliot to Eric Blair (George Orwell), 19 February 1932
“I am sorry to have kept your manuscript. We did find it of very great interest, but I regret to say that it does not appear to me possible as a publishing venture. It is decidedly too short, and it seems to me too loosely constructed, as the French and English episodes fall into two parts with very little to connect them.”
TS Eliot to George Orwell , 13 July 1944
“I know that you wanted a quick decision about Animal Farm; but the minimum is two directors’ opinions, and that can’t be done under a week. The other director is in agreement with me that it is a distinguished piece of writing; that the fable is very skilfully handled, and that the narrative keeps one’s interest on its own plane – and that is something very few authors have achieved since Gulliver.
On the other hand, we have no conviction (and I am sure none of the other directors would have) that this is the right point of view from which to criticise the political situation at the present time. […]
I am very sorry, because whoever publishes this, will naturally have the opportunity of publishing your future work: and I have a regard for your work, because it is good writing of fundamental integrity.”
Or maybe the words of an unnamed ‘Faber reader’ who was given the first draft of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (then called ‘Strangers from Within’) who pronounced it:
“Absurd & uninteresting fantasy about the explosion of an atom bomb on the colonies. A group of children who land in jungle country near New Guinea. Rubbish & dull. Pointless. Reject.”
Fortunately for Faber, this view was overturned by Charles Monteith, who would go on to be company Chairman.
I could go on giving lots of examples but you can read these yourself. If you love book-related tittle tattle and want a privileged glimpse into the beating heart of a publishing house, there’s plenty here to delight. But don’t be afraid to skim some of it until you find the parts that interest you.
Terry Potter
July 2019