The most important and painful of all the deals with Maurice Girodias that went wrong was over Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. A literary agent in Paris had approached him (Girodias ran Olympia Press in Paris, which published pornography as well as literary luminaries such as Samuel Beckett). Denise Clarouin had long been established and had known his father well: she now wanted to introduce him as a matter urgency to a Russian friend, Doussia Ergaz, an emigrΘe, who had a special manuscript. He was told that it was written by a white Russian of good family, now teaching at an American university, a recognised author, but this particular book had to be published anonymously because of the content. Girodias at this point was living with Muffie, the estranged wife of Austryn Wainhouse, whose translations of the Marquis de Sade were one of the main items in the Olympia catalogue. Maurice and Muffie read the manuscript together and enthused over a long work about an affair between a pre-pubescent young girl and a paedophile, which was entitled Lolita. It fascinated them both. It was obvious to Girodias that Doussia Ergaz had been an ex-lover of the author by the care she took over the negotiations and her insistence on secrecy where the name of Nabokov was concerned.
Girodias had many difficulties. The book was a long one and he would have to publish it in two volumes, and it was not the kind of easy erotica on which he could expect to make money. But he sold the translation rights to Gallimard, having little expectation that he would sell it elsewhere, the author in any case not wanting it to appear in America. It soon became obvious to Girodias once he had started to correspond directly with Nabokov that the latter was not happy about being published by a house specialising in pornography and erotica, but he had no choice. His disdain for this publisher he never met became greater with time, but he was pleased about Gallimard. It was Raymond Queneau, brilliant author himself and one of the most influential of Claude Gallimard's advisors who brought about French publication, overruling the nervousness of his boss. Eric Kahane, Maurice's brother, did the translation. The book was attacked in France and successfully defended, but it became necessary, in order to do so, to reveal the name of the author. This created considerable difficulty for him at the American university.
American publication came about in a strange way. The American publisher, Walter Minton, who had recently inherited the highly reputable firm of G.P. Putnam from his father, was having an affair with a chorus girl called Rosemary Ridgewell, who on a visit to Paris had bought Lolita and thought it the funniest book she had ever read. On her insistence Minton bought American rights, although, according to Girodias' memoirs, he never found the time to read it. but it became an instant best-seller and soon royalties were pouring into Olympia Press. Rosemary and Walter Minton went to Paris and Girodias invited them to lunch, a little discomfited when Rosemary insisted on going to the very expensive Tour d'Argent. He was nervously feeling in his pocket to see how much cash he had, when Rosemary insisted that Walter was paying. He saw them again that night when it became very obvious they were not getting on, and when he took them, along with Iris Owens (who wrote novels for him as Harriet Daimler) to a lesbian night club the evening ended in a fracas with Minton hitting Rosemary and walking out. The next morning she turned up at Maurice's flat with a bag of croissants, spent the day in bed with him, and returned to New York on her own the following day. Maurice's private life was always colourful and he never had difficulties with ladies.
But long before this he had offered the book to me and I had accepted it. I knew nothing about Vladimir Nabokov at that point, but it was obvious that this Russian emigrΘ had a wonderful facility with English style and a caustic view of his adopted country. That he was also a fastidious aristocrat who resented having to go to a maverick pornographic publisher like Girodias to get his book into print I only realised later. Maurice's memoirs are revealing and show much insight into the ambiguities of the author's complex personality, and my subsequent difficulties certainly had something to with Nabokov's prejudice against him.
I signed a contract for British rights and announced Lolita for publication, taking care to find influential figures who would defend it if attacked. One day I came back from lunch to find a man sitting at my desk with both feet on it, reading my correspondence.
"What the devil are you doing?" I exclaimed. he looked up, still holding some of my letters in his hand.
"Are you Calder?" he asked, and swinging his feet onto the ground, he went on. "Well, I'm Walter Minton. I have a message for you from Vladimir Nabokov. You're not going to publish his book." He took another look at the letters in his hand. "Interesting," he commented and stood up, dropping them on the desk. Then he went on to tell me, as rudely as possible, that Nabokov had checked me out, and believed from my past publishing that I was a Communist. He also disliked other writers in my catalogue, especially Beckett. As for my contract with Girodias, the author would repudiate it and go to court if necessary.
I decided to asked Barney Rosset to help (Rosset ran Grove Press in New York). One of Barney's recent letters had mentioned meeting AndrΘ Deutsch at the Harvard Club. Deutsch was also interested in Lolita. Barney made some efforts on my behalf, but when he was told that the objections to me were political, he gave up. Nabokov had soon made other enquiries and I learned from Barney that George Weidenfeld would be acceptable to him. I decided to compromise. I had lunch with George and suggested we might publish the book together in partnership. At the Frankfurt Book Fair of 1957 we saw Girodias together. Before the meeting I had told George that Maurice was sensitive and wanted to be seen as a literary publisher rather than as a pornographer, but at our meeting Girodias was in a jocular mood, laughed about his ill-fame and agreed the proposition. I signed a contract with Weidenfeld whereby he acquired half the rights and agreed equally to share all risks and expenses. The book would appear under his imprint with myself as a sleeping partner.
But then the trouble started. Our partnership was secret and unknown to the author. Weidenfeld was directly in the firing line in the event of a prosecution and this created a problem for his co-director Nigel Nicolson, who was the Tory member of Parliament for Bournemouth and had already made himself unpopular with his constituents by opposing Anthony Eden's attack on Nasser during the Suez crisis, a hypocritical war which benefited only Israel and had little support in Britain except from the Tory faithful. To be seen now as the publisher of a highly controversial book about paedophilia would offend his constituents even further and he was nervous. Carter-Ruck, the most expensive libel lawyer in Britain, was consulted and he advised extreme caution. As legal and other expenses mounted, my own attitude, which was that once you had decided to publish a book you went ahead with it, was ignored, and I became seriously worried at the growing legal costs with little hope of getting any of it back for some time. Finally I accepted defeat and passed over all rights to Weidenfeld, getting ten per cent of the profits, which never came to much, because a publishing profit is almost impossible to calculate when overheads are taken into account. Weidenfeld finally went ahead and published. The book was supported by prominent authors such as Graham Greene, whom I had recruited in the early days to support the book. The Bournemouth Conservative Party duly deselected Nigel Nicolson, who thereby lost his seat at the next election. Weidenfeld and Nicolson made a great deal of money on Lolita, but also had an option on all the other books of Nabokov, which the firm published over the next few years.
When Girodias turned up at my stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1962, he was flat broke. "Johnny," he said, "can you lend me some money. I need five thousand dollars." As much of his revenue during the last few years had been from sales of rights to American publishers, he thought primarily in terms of dollars, which American publishers in his eyes always had in abundance. But I certainly had no spare cash. "Sorry, Maurice, I can't help you. I have just enough to get me through this Frankfurt."
"Well, let me share your room then. You can't let me sleep in the street."
In the end, and very reluctantly, I let him share my room at the Frankfurterhof, which fortunately had another bed. On the first night he harangued me. A warm bed was not his only motive in turning to me. He reminded me of the Censorship Day at Edinburgh where he had been present, had spoken, and had witnessed the acclaim given to Henry Miller, in whom he had an almost obsessive personal interest. His father had first published him, but he, Maurice, had been cheated out of the rights of the two Tropics and other titles by Hachette after the war. He had published some later Miller in the fifties at Olympia Press, had on one occasion been to court over them, and he had been instrumental in helping Barney Rosset to obtain American rights. Now, he said, was the time for me to publish Henry Miller in Britain.
Henry Miller had replaced D. H. Lawrence as the most notorious writer still banned in Britain. The Lady Chatterley prosecution in 1960 had been a great show trial with prominent writers and academics and even a bishop appearing as witnesses for the defence. The publisher, Penguin Books, against all expectation, had won triumphantly. Henry Miller's acclaim at the Edinburgh Festival Writers' Conference, said Girodias, showed where public opinion lay, and now was the time to publish him. And who should do it other than me, who had brought Henry Miller to Edinburgh?
After two nights of listening to Maurice, I began to realise he was right. Many publishers had been in Edinburgh to support their authors or to fish for new ones and propositions had already been made to Henry Miller's Paris agent. So why, after all, not me? I looked up Dr. Hoffman, Miller's agent, who was in Frankfurt and broached the subject. He said he would speak to Henry.
Under pressure, I had advanced a few marks to Maurice, which I could ill afford, and he was always asking for more. Then I had a brainwave. I suggested that he should put it about that he was writing his memoirs. He was a notorious character who had been connected with many writers, a libertine publisher whose so-called pornography often included works of great literary merit, a man who had attacked censorship everywhere out of conviction and had also led an interesting life. He had made important literary discoveries, published best-sellers, made fortunes and lost them again though his follies, the biggest of which had been his restaurant and succession of night-clubs, La Grande Severine. At one point, underneath or over his publishing offices, there had been a Russian restaurant with cabaret, which earlier had been a Brazilian one, a Blues Bar under the roof, a theatre in the basement, all in the same building on the Rue St. Severin. In expanding his basement his contractor had dug into the graveyard of the nearby church, and had filled the local dustbins around the Boulevard St. Michel with human remains from the Middle Ages. Three of his mistresses were all working in the complex simultaneously at one point, one of them a film star. His memoirs could only be a best-seller.
He did not take me seriously at first. When could he find the time? That was not his immediate problem, I pointed out. He needed advance contacts and good advances. I would help him to sell an autobiography, of which not a word was written, by saying that I had seen extracts that were fascinating and put rumours about the Fair. All he had to do was wait until he was approached, then say that he had thought it too dangerous to bring the manuscript to Frankfurt, but that he would consider offers. Five minutes later I ran into AndrΘ Deutsch in one of the Fair's corridors. "Is it true, AndrΘ," I asked him, "that you have the book?"
"What book, John?"
"Girodias' autobiography. I heard you had bought English rights. I've seen a bit of it. It's dynamite. But if you have it, I won't waste my time."
"Sorry, John. I'm in a hurry. See you later." And off he went to find Girodias. I used the same ploy with Tom Maschler of Jonathan Cape and other British publishers, and then with German, French and Italian ones. By the next day Maurice had signed three contracts or option agreements and had £15,000 in cash in his pockets. He took a suite at the Frankfurterhof, even gave a party in it, and I had my room to myself. The story is told in his own words, rather more amusingly, in the first of the two volumes of memoirs he was later to write, J'Arrive, which in English became The Frog Prince.
All my dealings with Maurice landed me in problems. He was unable to make a straightforward deal and stick to it. By the very nature of most of the books he published, he was often doing business with authors who saw him as naive and took advantage of his unwillingness to write anything down or remember what he had given in cash payment for the manuscripts he accepted, and he was often dealing with publishers and booksellers who did not live in a culture of honesty and trust. His lack of guile was very transparent, which enabled many to take advantage of him: it was not too surprising that with experience he became very distrustful and often sought to cheat on a contract before he himself was cheated. I did less business with him after the early sixties, which made it easier to remain friends until his death in 1990.
After Frankfurt I went to Paris and spoke seriously to Dr. Hoffman. Other British publishers had been in touch and had offered contracts, but always with a proviso allowing them an indefinite delay before they had to publish. I offered an advance of £2000, less than most of the others, but I was willing to guarantee publication within a year, and possibly within six months. Hoffman was anxious to see the book out. He agreed and Henry Miller agreed as well.
As soon as the contract was signed I heard from Barney. Not only had he been obliged to fight obscenity cases, but after winning he had to bring lawsuits against pirate paperback companies, who had brought out their own editions to take advantage of the strange American copyright law, whereby copyright is lost if more than 1,500 copies of a book printed in another country were circulated in the U.S. Although there were no figures to prove it, it was obvious that more than that quantity must have been smuggled into the country since 1934 when Tropic of Cancer was first published by Jack Kahane's Obelisk Press. A large number had been seized by customs.
Barney saw an opportunity to recoup his losses through the British edition and suggested that he would like to become my partner and share expenses and profits.
My business partner, Marion Boyar's reactions to this were strange. She had bought half an interest in the company that still bore my name, but she found that at Frankfurt and in general she was not treated as my equal and she resented it, becoming on occasion rather strident in her assertion, repeated many times a day at Frankfurt: "I am an equal partner. I own half the shares." The Edinburgh Writers Conference had unfortunately made my shadow uncomfortably large for her. Although she realised that our higher profile benefited her as well, there was a chancre growing in her mind, which was to emerge later. Now she voiced her anxiety over getting involved in a book that could lead to prosecution. It was Roy Jones, who tipped the balance. He was Marion's financial advisor but also a board member, and by nature he was a risk-taker. At our crucial meeting after I had talked Dr. Hoffman into a contract, he finally said that if I wanted to take the risk of publishing Miller, it must be on my own. I would have to pay any expenses to defend the book. It was agreed, against this, that in consideration of the risk-taking I could keep half of the profits. Marion remained negative and frightened, but Roy persuaded her that in this way she risked nothing. We accepted Barney's offer because it reduced my own risk and would provide funds for a defence if we needed it. Barney was sent a contract that would give him a half share in the British edition of Tropic of Cancer.
I went skiing at Val d'IsΦre at the end of February in 1963. On the bus from Geneva airport, which is a long ride, I sat next to a charming French lady and we spent the time talking. She owned a clothing boutique in Paris and although on holiday, did not intend to ski, but to enjoy the ambience and clear air of the Savoy mountains in winter. She had no hotel reservation and I persuaded her to come to my hotel, where, however, she would not share my room, so I let her have it for the night, while I shared Jacques Chaix's, because the hotel, and indeed the whole village, was booked out.
The next morning Jacqueline and I became intimate enough for me to return to my own room. I spent an enjoyable five days skiing, and enjoyed the company of my regular skiing friends and of course of Jacqueline, but then a telephone call came from Dick Seaver in New York, then Barney Rosset's principal editor. Barney wanted me to come to New York right away to discuss the contract and publication details. I had intended to stay two weeks at Val d'IsΦre, but after an exchange of telegrams, with Barney becoming ever more insistent, I reluctantly cut short my holiday by a week. My final telegram said: "OK COMING BUT MERDE" and left. Jacqueline later told me that Jacques had suggested she move in with him, saving we were like brothers and shared everything, but she had declined.
I spent three days in New York, quite pointlessly, and returned to London. We had discussed the contract to which Barney did not object, but he had mislaid it and would send it back when he found it. Back in Britain we went ahead with publication. Our biggest difficulty was finding a printer. I finally found a small one willing to print a first edition of ten thousand copies, but we had to sign an indemnity taking all the risks upon ourselves, because a printer can also be prosecuted. He was a very slow printer with rather slow machinery. I also looked for literary support in the event that a prosecution did take place, although on balance I felt that we were probably safe. Miller's good Edinburgh reception and favourable publicity must have registered with the D.P.P. and his office was still smarting from their defeat in the Penguin trial. I was canvassing my own defence witnesses just in case.
The names to whom I wrote, who agreed, either to appear in the box if necessary, or to otherwise give support by writing letters or signing a document approving publication, included Anthony Powell, Charles Osborne, Robert Bolt, Brian Aldiss, Kenneth Alsopp, R.D. Smith, Kenneth Tynan, V.S. Pritchett, Naomi Lewis, David Daiches, Terence Kilmartin, George Devine, William Golding, J.B. Priestley, Sir Compton MacKenzie, Laurence Durrell, Sir Herbert Read, Arnold Wesker, Sam Wanamaker and others, an astonishing line-up for those days. Sam Beckett would do anything other than appear in court. His earlier experience as a witness in the Gogarty trial in the 1930s in Dublin had taught him what havoc a clever barrister could wreak with his totally honest reactions. I wrote a letter to the D.P.P., telling him we intended to publish, giving him all the reasons we were doing it, and a list of names of those who supported us. We certainly did not expect him to prosecute, but would withhold publication until after the trial if he intended to do so, so that no booksellers would be involved. It was only ten days before publication that we received a reply that after taking advice from counsel he did not intend to prosecute. I decided to keep this information to myself.
The contract had still not been sent back by Barney. I realised he was waiting to see if there was to be a prosecution or not. A week before hearing from the D.P.P. I sent Barney an ultimatum: either the contract arrived within seven days or we would go it alone without him. There was no reply.
On publication day, which was in April, I turned on the radio and heard the eight o'clock news. The BBC announced that long queues were already forming outside Foyles and other London bookshops to buy Tropic of Cancer before it was banned. I had been right to keep the D.P.P.'s letter to myself. Every bookshop sold out that morning and the telephone kept ringing with re-orders. The book had been published at twenty-five shillings, a relatively high price. The cover design was simple, an exploding white star in a blue background, close to the original Obelisk Press edition that Maurice Girodias had designed as a teenager.
The problem was now the printer. He promised another ten thousand, but it took him two weeks and by the time they arrived we had orders for 40,000 copies. Eventually we found another printer who could give us 10,000 a week. As fast as each new printing arrived at the warehouse it was sent out, and we had to ration each bookseller. We were, for the first and only time, on the Sunday Times' best-seller list. A young man from Germany, Christopher von Schlotterer, had come to work for a few weeks to improve his English. On the first morning he turned up at our Sackville Street office, and he was there punctually at nine o'clock, only to find the door at the top of the stairs locked. He sat on the stairs and waited. At about half-past, the receptionist was the first to arrive. "Ah, you must be the German boy," she said, and let him in. His principal job for the next few weeks was dividing up the daily flow of orders for Tropic of Cancer into lots of 1,000 copies so that the books could go out according to the sequence of orders arriving, cutting back on larger ones. there was always a shortage of orders and we had to ration for over two months until the printings caught up.
Not only was the press full of the book, but to have a copy of it in one's hand was both a signal that one belonged to what soon came to be called "swinging London" and an act of solidarity with the new underground culture that was opposing the old traditions. William Rees-Mogg editorialised against the book in the Times, which should, he claimed, have been prosecuted. I had a considerable volume of abusive correspondence, some calling for me to be dragged to hell, others using language much more obscene than anything in the book, and much more violent (Henry Miller is never violent), and there were telephone calls of the same calibre. I was even threatened with assassination and there was a threat to kidnap my daughter and do unmentionable things to her. The appearance of the book seemed to have stimulated every kind of perverted crank as well as obsessive puritans, although that is hardly the right way to describe them. But the book continued to sell well, and within two months we had no overdraft, and I was able to take those yellowing manuscripts off the shelf, some of which had been accepted a long time previously, and others I wanted to publish, and put them into production.
(c) John Calder 2001