some things need no introduction.

 

JOHN CALDER

Without hyperbole, the most important publisher in Britain (and one of the most in the world). John Calder founded Calder Publications in 1949 aged 26. He was Samuel Beckett’s publisher; the first man to make the work of William Buroughs available in the UK; he ran (with Sonya Orwell and Jim Haynes) the infamous Edinburgh Conference on the Novel in 1962; stood in a landmark censorship trial after publishing Hubert Selby Jr.’s ‘Last Exit to Brooklyn‘; was chased from the US under McCarthyism; ran the Calder Bookshop in London, hosting weekly events for several decades with the best of the literary avant-garde; has published 17 Nobel Prize winners… He has also written the autobiography ‘Pursuit‘ and several books of criticism and poetry — including this from his latest ‘Being – Seeing – Feeling – Healing – Meaning’ available from Alma Books