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Bookbuyer
As young editors leave established publishing houses it has been noted how often their authors follow them. But the general galvanising effect of changing publishers has been too little remarked upon. When the great thriller writer Eric Ambler transferred to Weidenfeld — a triumph for Tony Goodwin — 'lie vastly increased his sales in this country. Maurice Edelman, the Labour MP and political novelist, went up to 30,000 or more in hardback in the US, when he switched from Random to Stein and Day. Edelman did well, too, when he moved to Collins, and increased his sales by 15,000. A change is as good as a profit?
Edward Arnold, it seems, are having a little trouble with King's College Cambridge, the trustees of E. M. Forster's estate. The publishers have undertaken an excellent twenty-volume edition of almost all Forster's writing, impeccably edited by Oliver Stallybrass — King's can have no complaint here. But for the first volume of the Abinger edition — a collection of short stories in the Maurice vein called The Life to Come — Edward Arnold have proposed a very striking cover. It portrays Forster with distinct suggestions of la maladie anglaise, to which King's has objected — to the cover, that is. Bookbuyer is surprised that King's seems to have been so uncharacteristically prim, since it housed both Forster and his works for several decades. Edward Arnold, being more compromising, are arranging for a new cover.
Yet another weekly magazine, for women, has been dreamed up by the marketing computer which has now decided, on behalf of IPC, that there exists a gap in the market for consumer-oriented women in the Al-B! category. Hence Candida, whose name suggests many pleasant things, such as Shaw's Candida, John Betjeman's daughter, but hardly, in the context, candour itself. It will start appearing in September. Jean Twiddy, the editor-inchief was unable to attend a recent promotion party for "literary people ", but every one sat around on chairs thoughtfully provided while her disembodied voice promised them over a tape that Candida would attract advertising from all the other glossies in that field. Slides of the dummy first issue were also shown to the rapt and excited audience.
Almost as if the Foreman-Attenborough film Young Winston needed publicity, it is being accompanied by six books on Churchill. Sphere are putting out two this summer—a paperback Young Churchill by Randolph Churchill, and the paperback of Young Winston, published in hardback by Leo Cooper Ltd. of Jilly Cooper notoriety. Collins are publishing two on July 31, and already out are the New English Library The Young Churchill by Frank Brennand, and Frontiers and Wars by the great man himself, in Penguins. More are expected, for better or worse, early next year.
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