Author Archives: Kelvin Smith

Kabuff or Wunderkammer?

Posted on July 5, 2019

Fictional publishers often appear at international book fairs. The setting gives writers the chance to introduce new characters, engineer plot twists and inject the frisson of drunken conversations and illicit sex. The Frankfurt Kabuff, Blaire Squiscoll’s recent work, adds a … Continue reading →

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Madame Verdurin and the publisher

Posted on July 29, 2018

More than two thousand pages into À la recherche du temps perdu there is a brief mention of a Paris publisher who is said to have attended Madame Verdurin’s salon. Un grand éditeur de Paris venu en visite, et qui … Continue reading →

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Elizabeth Taylor goes from bookshop to plantation

Posted on February 19, 2018

In Shillingworth-On-Thames Elizabeth Taylor is swept of her feet by John Wiley, the owner of a Ceylon tea plantation, and has amazing romantic adventures. Perhaps she would have been happier staying in the world of books, or perhaps things would … Continue reading →

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In 1954 quite a few bright publishers secretly believed this

Posted on February 15, 2018

Muriel Spark’s fictional recollection of the London publishing world in A Far Cry from Kensington is a meandering tale that tells us something about the ways in which young ladies in the 1950s acquired “a job in publishing”, lost it, … Continue reading →

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Tite and Snobby or Doolittle and Dalley?

Posted on February 13, 2018

The River Girl by Wendy Cope appeared in 1991 with lovely brush illustrations by Nicholas Garland. The narrative poem tells the tale of a young writer who, inspired by the river girl muse, becomes a great literary success. This does … Continue reading →

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Penguin…and all the other things we once thought mattered

Posted on December 2, 2017

Kif, the narrator of Richard Flanagan’s First Person, is writing a novel, but it’s going nowhere when his old pal Ray gets him the job of ghostwriting Ziggy Heidl’s autobiography. That’s how he and Ray ‘drifted into that world of … Continue reading →

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Publishing lunch in New York

Posted on September 29, 2017

Kay Norris, one of the main characters in Ira Levin’s Sliver, is an editor at Diadem, and she epitomises the supposed glamour of New York trade publishing in the 1980s. She lunches in the Grill Room of the Four Seasons … Continue reading →

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