Criminal offence
Sir: It is kind of your Bookbuyer to say that this firm is one of the two main challengers to the hypothetically " leading " publishers of thrillers. But to say that we "approach straight novelists published by rivals and, with a modest advance, set them to write pseudonymously for Constable" is not the case, and never has been. All that has happened is that literary agents have occasionally offered us thrillers by novelists writing under pen-names, and in three cases their books have been published in the Constable Crime Series.
Miles Huddleston Director, Constable and Co. Ltd, 10 Orange Street, London WC2 From Lord Hardinge of Penshurst Sir: There seemed no reason to write to you about Bookbuyer's contribution to youi issue of January 1 since its many inaccuracies suggested an ignorance of crime publishing that rendered it rather an empty exercise. The fact that, not far between the lines, it read as though it had been slanted against my authors, myself and my employers didn't seem to be of much importance.
However, your Bookbuyer, again inaccurate and again deferential to Collins and Gollancz, has now come further into the open (January 8) and attacked my list as "dullish." I'm intrigued as to who Bookbuyer may be, and the sources from which he obtains his information and misinformation about the publishing of crime novels. As newcomers to this field of publishing it is of course agreeable to be regarded already as the main challenge to its two greatest imprints, but I can't be expected to agree with Bookbuyer's other opinions, and I don't. Nor, on most occasions, have the majority of reviewers on both major and minor papers (if Bookbuyer is bold enough to visit me in my office I will show him the review sheets and, I believe, establish this point to his satisfaction). Among other people likely to disagree with him are Ursula Curtiss, Val Gielgud, James Graham, P. M. Hubbard, Selwyn Jepson, Mary Kelly, Tom Lilley, Peter Lovesey, Donald MacKenzie, Laurence Meynell, Ellis Peters, Miles Tripp, Michael Underwood, John Wainwright and Sara Woods, to name but a few from an outstanding and successful list. Many of these authors once wrote for Collins and other great imprints — were they " dullish " then? I should think that most authors, their agents and publishers (including Gollancz) will be rather surprised to hear that their "average sale is 5 or 6,000 hardback copies."
What all publishers must hope is that we shall soon see some serious and regular reviewing of crime novels in The Spectator as there used to be.
Hardinge of Penshurst Macmillan (London) Ltd, 4 Little Essex Street, London, WC2
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