Thomas Mann defines the Publisher
Just finished reading Fred Warburg’s absorbing memoir An Occupation for a Gentleman. Enlightening to learn of the early struggles he faced, first with a broken marriage, then, during the 30s broken finances. The book ends at the beginning of the second world war. A supportive, if blunt, second wife, H.G. Wells and George Orwell set the stage for post war prosperity, which is treated in another concluding volume.
At the end of this book, Warburg quotes Thomas Mann’s tribute to Alfred Knopf, and his definition of the publisher:
"The publisher is not a soloist of spiritual exertion, but the conductor of the orchestra. Whereas the author, in his public lonelilness, with only himself to rely on, hemmed in of necessity by his ego, struggles to do his best, the publisher selects from the common effort whatever his instinct and his feeling of the necessary considers as just and beneficial. He takes it over, impresses the stamp of his enterprise upon it, and hurls it in its collective variety into the battle of life, where it must contend with the powers of obstinacy, ignorance and death…What a glorious occupation, this mixture of business sense and strategic friendship with the spirit! What a noble way to gain a livelihood! I called it easy, but this was a blunder. I am well aware that in these days the life of a publisher is far from easy. But happy I may certainly call it, in spite of all its difficulties. It must be happy, free from the torture and frailty which all individual creation involves – and yet with an opportunity to serve the spirit."