Firebrand

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Horace Liveright (1884-1933) lingers as one of the greats in U.S. publishing, though many in the business today would be hard put to remember why. This study by Dardis (Some Time in the Sun) puts him back into sharp focus: with initial ambitions as a playwright, Liveright went instead into the staid world of publishing near the end of WWI (almost simultaneously with Alfred Knopf) and shook it to its foundations. He was a hard-drinking gambler who loved books and authors, took great pleasure in their successes, nursed them in their failures, was always good for a handout in the form of an unearnable advance and was, in Ezra Pound's words, ``a jewel of a publisher.'' Pound was one of his authors; he also published Eliot's The Waste Land, launched Faulkner, Hemingway and the Modern Library (which he sold to Bennett Cerf), stuck by Sherwood Anderson and Theodore Dreiser long after they became unprofitable, nurtured Bertrand Russell and had Nathanael West on his last list. He also battled censorship at a time when other publishers had no stomach for the fight. What brought Liveright low, after a dazzling 12-year run, was his profligacy. His offices, full of booze and chorus girls, looked like the scene of one long party, and profits from his frequent bestsellers seemed to melt away. What with his stock-market fliers, his attempts to be a Broadway producer and his unending generosity to his authors, Liveright's course lay steadily downward. Dardis tells his story with unfailing narrative drive and a fine blend of immediacy and perspective. Photos. (July)

Donna Seaman

The name Horace Liveright might not ring any bells, but every reader knows the Modern Library series, Liveright's first and most financially successful publishing venture. Dardis' lively biography secures Liveright's place in the pantheon of innovative and courageous American book publishers. Liveright earned his nickname, "Firebrand," by fighting censorship (with the help of New York mayor Jimmy Walker) and by being the first in the U.S. to publish revolutionary writers such as Sigmund Freud, Leon Trotsky, Ezra Pound, Theodore Dreiser, T. S. Eliot, John Reed, Djuna Barnes, and Eugene O'Neill. A lucky Wall Street speculator in his youth, Liveright brought his intuition and love of gambling to publishing with great success. Handsome, devastatingly charming, and frankly unorthodox, Liveright played as seriously as he worked, nearly bankrupting his prestigious publishing house by throwing lavish parties and destroying his marriage by engaging in numerous affairs. Not only does Dardis' entertaining volume relate the life of this fascinating man, it also illuminates some crucial aspects of the history of book publishing in the U.S. and relates many delectable anecdotes about the most influential writers of the Jazz Age.