Faber & Faber: The Untold Story of a Great Publishing House

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Faber and Faber is one of the world's greatest independent publishers. Literary superstars like T.S.Eliot, William Golding, Ted Hughes, and Sylvia Plath are synonymous with the name 'Faber', as are the leafy squares of twentieth-century Bloomsbury. But what is the real tale behind the house that brought together these authors And how did a tiny firm set up by two men in 1925 - weathering obstacles from wartime paper shortages to dramatic financial crashes - survive to this very day

Toby Faber has grown up with these stories, and uses a range of humorous and surprising sources to tell the history of the publisher in its own words. Drawing on material from memos to board minutes and unpublished memoirs, Faber takes us deep inside the evolution of the company: and along the way, we meet a cast of colourful characters that are stranger than fiction, whether poets or novelists, managers or editors.

Decade by decade, Faber's portrait of one company's history becomes not only that of an entire century, but a hymn to the role of the arts in public life. Faber & Faber shows us how publishing can shift a nation's cultural conversation - and speaks directly to the way we engage with literature today.

Reviews

"The persistence of Faber & Faber, which is now celebrating ninety years as an independent publisher, makes for a remarkable case study.... The Faber story certainly speaks volumes about the mix of passion, shrewdness, and luck that it takes to keep such an operation afloat." --The New Yorker
***"Anyone with an interest in the history of English-language publishing won't want to miss this thoroughly charming history of the venerable British firm of Faber & Faber, which is celebrating its ninetieth anniversary. The story of how Faber has managed to remain independent for nearly a century--and during a time of rampant consolidation in the industry--has much to do with luck, of course, but also with determined resilience, especially from the founder, Geoffrey Faber, who died in 1961. For most readers, though, the main point of interest here will be the substantial role in Faber's history played by its most famous editor, T. S. Eliot, who was hired by Faber in the twenties and whose stature as a poet and critic gave the firm instant credibility. Faber's reputation as a cutting-edge poetry publisher only grew as Eliot brought W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Philip Larkin, and Ted Hughes to the house during the next several decades. But Eliot's greatest contribution came later, after his death, with the sale to Andrew Lloyd Webber of the rights to Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats--the eventual success of the musical Cats did more than any individual book to keep the company solvent and independent through the decades. Author Tony Faber, Geoffrey's grandson, wisely eschews a straightforward narrative history in favor of an oral-history approach, drawing liberally on correspondence between publishers, editors, and authors, but also supplying valuable connective tissue in the form of brief but often witty introductions and commentary. The result is a surprisingly jaunty, thoroughly readable look at literary publishing in the twentieth century."-- Bill Ott, Booklist
"Culled from 90 years' worth of correspondence, board minutes, and other material from the Faber & Faber archives, this compilation from Faber (Faberg's Eggs), the company's former managing director (and its founder's grandson), offers a uniquely close-up view of 20th-century literary history. It includes fascinating stories about now-canonical works, such as how Lord of the Flies was published by the company despite being rejected by a reader's note that dismissed the initial manuscript as an "absurd & uninteresting fantasy about the explosion of an atom bomb on the colonies." However, its greatest value lies in revealing the personalities of Faber & Faber's key figures, including Geoffrey Faber, who founded it in 1929; despite the company's name, he had no partner, but simply reasoned, as a friend advised him, "You can't have too much of a good thing." Perhaps most notably, the book gives a new view of longtime Faber & Faber director T.S. Eliot, who comes across as humane, witty, and deeply dedicated to the company, and whose friendship with Geoffrey Faber emerges as one of the 20th century's great unsung literary partnerships. Brimming with humanizing details and unforgettable literary personalities, Faber's compilation will be a delight for literature fans."--Agent: Peter Straus, Rogers Coleridge & White.(Aug.), Library Journal

Author Bio

As the grandson of Faber's founder, Toby Faber grew up steeped in the company's books and its stories. He was Faber's managing director for four years and remains a non-executive director and chairman of sister company Faber Music. He has written two celebrated works of non-fiction, Stradivarius and Faberge's Eggs, and his first novel, Close to the Edge, will be published by Muswell Press in 2019. He lives in London with his wife and two daughters.