Bookend
Bookbuyer
The Bodley Head has had astronomical subscriptions before publication for Solzhenitsyn's August 1914, which has been reprinted four times before publication, to a total of 85,000 copies. The subscriptions amounted to about 55,000. If this does not quite make publishing history, it is still possibly the highest figure for a translation of a foreign novel in this country. Cancer Ward came nowhere near this. Boris Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago might have had comparable prepublication success; certainly after publication it was a long-standing best seller, But Collins, who published it, were reluctant to give subscription figures. A spokesman said, rather ruefully, that publishers obviously had to be honest about sales figures, but that if they didn't like to give other figures they need not. Bookbuyer was reminded that sales conditions were very different in 1959, but was not altogether convinced that they have become unmentionable since then.
What's in a name? Sales prospects of course; but what else in the case of the General Editor of Weidenfeld & Nicolson's new series Kings and Queens of England? Lady Antonia Fraser has been appointed "General Editor" of this series, but actually, it seems, has done very little in the way of editing. In the case of at least one of the histories Lady Antonia has not read the work, and one contributing author's name was mis-spelt in three different ways in Lady Antonia's preface.
While her general knowledge of history may be good, and her knowledge of the sixteenth century very good, Bookbuyer is surprised that she is considered historian enough to edit Maurice Ashley and Keith Middlemass.
However, despite Weidenfeld's description, not all their authors are "leading historians". Some are laymen, who have produced their contributions in record time and who are, incidentally, not getting royalties (though Lady Antonia is). Bookbuyer is all for very professional amateurs, like Lady Antonia, but also a little sorry for the amateur professionals in this case.
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