Bookbuyer's

Bookend

The announcement last week Head had joined financial force and Chatto and Windus was per most cheering publishing news at Although, by Longman's standands, companies make modest claims to — Chatto celebrate their centenary while Bodley Head and Cape mitre in 1894 and 1921 respectively -list bined literary achievement is formic]

Quite apart from its home-grown

(among them Compton Mackenzie' Huxley, Day Lewis and Richard Chatto published Proust and Fattlikn

country, and in 1946 stepped in to eo

nard Woolf keep the Hogarth 41,r going

after he had broken with John Cce ft;de

was a happy and profitable assOcia :and

Chatto had the satisfaction' of in-her g the works of Virginia Woolf and the gfish

rights to Freud. Cape for their part c' boast a happy blend of authors both popu ic and prestigious; Arthur Ransome, Ian Olin and Len Deighton nestling beside way, T. E. Lawrence, John Fowles, Bowen, Doris Lessing and others Head's gallery of literary lions incl beire zhenitsyn, Graham Greene, James J e and Scott Fitzgerald, and the imprint also. parries a remarkable children's list.

Yet despite these literary riches, al) three

companies have tended to live tiocier the same shadow of vulnerability thats afflicted most independent, mediurnesi2old publishers since the war. The failure of'4;an expensive project; the loss of a couple..bf successful authors; the sudden death oLn

•

portant shareholder; a recession hi gip:book trade, or in the country's econorny,-as a whole — any one of these faetorilnight, under certain circumstances, haitett been enough to put the entire busipess;t the' mercy of a bigger company with "a • y'dif

ferent set of publishing principles. t, This must have come home to 1110. Cape board when they were faced with the, problem of finding a suitable buyer for Uetr late founder's 40 per cent holding in 196 (After several comings and goings they. a' on Granada, though with certain restr'

must have been just as apparent t'' tto, who showed losses of over £50,000'1969, the year in which they merged their, erests with Cape. That they have both ne*': been joined by Bodley Head — thernh. the

subject of a temporary takeover)y e.and

two others in 1937 — augurs weNir; the survival of all three.

For one thing it will strengthen the safety

net under the tightrope each lie-n hatrtosen to walk. More specifically, it will,retince still further the power of GranacliVs idIng which last year stood at 12. per 60 and Chat t o Ltd. And since, as Deft used to .55 /, the road to hankeuillt with overheads, the new .partner doubt envisage savings in distab accountancy, and opportunitie$1,f operations which, individually:* been uneconomic. Lastly, burnt.* phenomenal collective strength drt list, (thanks, in particular to BO will equip them to follow Hein' Allen and BPC into the papa should they feel inclined. Th come El time when they have increasing reluctance of auth the conventional practice of stiart hack royalties with their hirdheiek may ultimately mean that ofily: facilities for both hardand $ lishing will be able to afford th i.y fry.