The Publishers

Barbara Pym

Coat of charms

When I was writing my post, Introducing Kurt Vonnegut, I was careful not to name the publishers. From a writerly perspective, I didn’t want to distract from the focus on Vonnegut himself. I also thought that keeping the publishers anonymous made them sound rather grander and more powerful, which suited the narrative. But also, to be honest, as a newbie writer, I was cautious about casting individuals (other than myself) in a negative light. Though, in fact, I said nothing offensive about the publishers, who were simply doing their job, and everyone behaved with great decorum (apart from me). 

The publisher in question was Tom Maschler, then at Jonathan Cape, who was something of a legend in the publishing industry (not that I knew that then). He was accompanied by a colleague, but I never caught the name. What struck me about Mashcler was his attitude of certainty and his air of expecting the world to bend to his will. Neither in my rural upbringing nor among the dons (professors) at Oxford had I come across anyone quite like him. I found him, to be honest, as he swept into the hall clad in a flowing cashmere coat, both impressive and terrifying. I’ve since met a lot of people like him, but he became the prototype of such figures.

Maschler, who died in 2020, is remembered for having a key role in the setting up of the Booker Prize, which has become a significant event in the literary world and not just in Britain. That’s quite a legacy. 

Miss Pym’s Day Out

He’s also remembered, less happily, as the man who refused to publish Barbara Pym’s seventh novel. According to the Barbara Pym Society, “In 1963, after thirteen years of modest success as a writer, Barbara submitted An Unsuitable Attachment to Jonathan Cape, her publisher; to her dismay, it was rejected as being out of step with the times.” It is said the decision was Maschler’s. 

Pym struggled with many further disappointments after that. Cape rejected Quartet in Autumn in 1976, a year before Phillip Larkin and David Cecil restored her reputation almost overnight by calling her “the most underrated novelist of the century.” In 1977, MacMillan published Quartet in Autumn, which is a beautiful novel, and it was shortlisted—of course!—for the Booker Prize (the eventual winner was Paul Scott for his novel Staying On).  You can see a charming film that culminates at the glittering Booker Prize reception here: 

By coincidence, just a month later, June Givin, one of my readers (who has her own excellent Substack), wrote these comments on my post about Mary Oliver: 

I'm afraid I don't know Mary Oliver either, so she's a discovery waiting to happen for me. When I discovered Barbara Pym I couldn't believe I hadn't read her before, and I couldn't believe that hardly anyone I knew, knew her work.

Just desserts

It’s hard to think of a greater contrast than that between the confident, superstar Kurt Vonnegut and his flamboyant, adventurous writing and the quieter craft and less flamboyant public persona of Pym. And clearly, Maschler valued one’s work higher than the other’s. 

But Pym got her own back in a typically understated way. According to Wikipedia, she and her sister Hilary invented a weak-tasting dessert, a combination of lime jelly and milk, and called it "Maschler pudding."