In this wry, candid, and sometimes poignant memoir, Peter Owen recalls his lonely Jewish boyhood in Nazi Germany and migration to England where he survived the London Blitz, a teenage dalliance with aspiring actress Fenella Fielding, and working with a motley variety of book publishers. He founded his eponymous publishing firm in 1951, becoming one of the youngest publishers in Britain. A pioneer of books on social themes, gay and lesbian writing, and literature in translation, Owen’s authors included ten Nobel laureates and brought Hermann Hesse, Ezra Pound, and Anaïs Nin to a wider audience. Enjoying their success, he and his wife Wendy were memorably stylish and eccentric figures at the literary parties of the 1960s and 1970s. Owen describes his often hilarious encounters with many of those he published, including John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and Salvador Dalí, his adventures in Japan with Yukio Mishima and Shūsaku Endō, and in Morocco with Tennessee Williams and Paul and Jane Bowles. As one of the last of the great émigré publishers, his death in 2016 aged 89 signalled the end of a literary era.
1 Rickets, Semolina and Other Nuremberg Trials
2 Mother
3 Kin Hell
4 A Couple of Old Cows
5 Wonderland?
6 Bugger Bognor
7 Breakdown
8 Brief Encounter
9 The Publisher’s Apprentice
10 A Rajah in Beggar’s Rags
11 The Reluctant Plonk
12 Peter Nevill
13 In For a Penny
14 Wendy
15 Prince of Zwemmer’s
16 Oh, Rudi!
17 The Men of Vision
18 Courteous Maniacs
19 Caligula's Horse and Other Tales
20 The Beast-Men of Varang-Varang
21 The Comforters
22 The Fallen Star
23 Marion
24 The End of the Affair
25 A Duke, Some Snobs and La Bâtarde
26 The Enigma of Anna Kavan
27 The Cold World
28 Palaces, Kings and Killers
29 Confessions of a Mask
30 There Goes Wendy Owen
31 Darkness Visible
32 Shusaku Endo
33 Tangerine Dreams
34 Will I Go to Heaven?
35 Tangerino Queen
36 Anaïs Nin
37 Engaging Eccentrics
38 Erté
39 Hello, Dalí
40 Just Me and the Rodents
41 Publishing, Censorship and Apollinaire
42 Dracula’s Daughter
43 The Passionate Penis
44 Inhabiting Shadows
45 Just One Vodkatini
46 Jeffrey Bernard is Defunct
47 The Boss from Hell
48 The Future of Publishing?
49 Departures
50 A Far Cry From Kensington
Afterword by James Nye
Appendix 1 The Story of Owen
Appendix 2 Myths and Reality
Appendix 3 Eccentrically Mean
Appendix 4 Constant Companions and Small Miracles
Tributes to Peter Owen
Acknowledgements
Bibliography and Resources
Index
