André Deutsch (15 November 1917 – 11 April 2000) was a Hungarian-born British publisher who founded an eponymous publishing company in 1951.

Biography

Deutsch was born on 15 November 1917 in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croa ...

, the son of a Jewish dentist.Lyall, Sarah
"Andre Deutsch, 82, Publisher Who Invigorated British Scene"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', 14 April 2000. He attended school in Budapest and in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populou ...

. The ''

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the Nazi Germany, German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "Ger ...

'' led to him fleeing Austria because he was Jewish, and in 1939, he settled in Britain, where he worked as floor manager at the

Grosvenor House Hotel ] JW Marriott Grosvenor House London, originally named the Grosvenor House Hotel, is a luxury hotel that opened in 1929 in the Mayfair area of London, England. The hotel is managed by JW Marriott Hotels, which is a brand of Marriott Internationa ...

in London. When Hungary entered the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

on the side of the Germans in 1941, Deutsch was interned for some weeks as an " enemy alien". Attallah, Naim
"No Longer With Us: André Deutsch"
(including interview with Deutsch from ''Singular Encounters''), quartetbooks.wordpress.com, 5 July 2010. After having learned the business of publishing while working for Francis Aldor (Aldor Publications, London), with whom he had been interned on the Isle of Man and who had introduced him to the industry, Deutsch left Aldor's employment after a few months to continue his burgeoning publishing career with the firm of Nicholson & Watson. After the war Deutsch founded his first company, Allan Wingate, but after a few years was forced out by one of his directors, Anthony Gibb. André Deutsch Limited began trading in 1952. His small but influential publishing house was active until the 1990s, and included books by

Jack Kerouac Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian an ...

, Wole Soyinka, Earl Lovelace, Norman Mailer, George Mikes, V. S. Naipaul,

Ogden Nash Frederic Ogden Nash (August 19, 1902 – May 19, 1971) was an American poet well known for his light verse, of which he wrote over 500 pieces. With his unconventional rhyming schemes, he was declared by ''The New York Times'' the country's bes ...

, Andrew Robinson,

Philip Roth Philip Milton Roth (March 19, 1933 – May 22, 2018) was an American novelist and short story writer. Roth's fiction—often set in his birthplace of Newark, New Jersey—is known for its intensely autobiographical character, for philosophical ...

Art Spiegelman Art Spiegelman (; born Itzhak Avraham ben Zeev Spiegelman on February 15, 1948) is an American cartoonist, editor, and comics advocate best known for his graphic novel ''Maus''. His work as co-editor on the comics magazines '' Arcade'' and '' Ra ...

John Updike John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth T ...

Margaret Atwood Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of non-fiction, ni ...

, Charles Gidley Wheeler, Helene Hanff,

Peter Benchley Peter Bradford Benchley (May 8, 1940 – February 11, 2006) was an American author, screenwriter, and ocean activist. He is known for his bestselling novel ''Jaws'' and co-wrote its film adaptation with Carl Gottlieb. Several more of his works w ...

Leon Uris Leon Marcus Uris (August 3, 1924 – June 21, 2003) was an American author of historical fiction who wrote many bestselling books including '' Exodus'' (published in 1958) and '' Trinity'' (published in 1976). Life and career Uris was born in B ...

, Molly Keane, Michael Rosen,

Quentin Blake Sir Quentin Saxby Blake, (born 16 December 1932) is an English cartoonist, caricaturist, illustrator and children's writer. He has illustrated over 300 books, including 18 written by Roald Dahl, which are among his most popular works. For his ...

, John Cunliffe, and

Ludwig Bemelmans Ludwig Bemelmans (April 27, 1898 – October 1, 1962) was an Austrian-American writer and illustrator of children's books and adult novels. He is known best for the '' Madeline'' picture books. Six were published, the first in 1939. Early life ...

. Deutsch employed dedicated editor Diana Athill, who in 1952 was a founding director of the publishing company that was given his name (and who in her memoir ''Stet'' described him as "possibly the most difficult man in London"). A number of book series were established including The Language Library, Grafton Books (works on librarianship, bibliography and book collecting) and the Introduces guides. In the 1989 Queen's Birthday Honours Deutsch was appointed a CBE. Deutsch died in London on 11 April 2000, aged 82.

In popular culture

Author

John le Carré David John Moore Cornwell (19 October 193112 December 2020), better known by his pen name John le Carré ( ), was a British and Irish author, best known for his espionage novels, many of which were successfully adapted for film or television. ...

based his recurring character Toby Esterhase on Deutsch, both in physical appearance and in replicating Deutsch's unique manner of speech:

Current imprint

The name "André Deutsch" is now an imprint of

Carlton Publishing Group Welbeck Publishing Group, formerly Carlton Publishing Group, is a London-based independent book publisher of fiction, narrative and illustrated non-fiction, as well as gift and children's books. Established in 2019 by Executive Directors Mark Sm ...

, which purchased the company from Video Collection International Plc.

References

External links

André Deutsch website

André Deutsch Collection
at

Oxford Brookes University Oxford Brookes University (formerly known as Oxford Polytechnic) is a public university in Oxford, England. It is a new university, having received university status through the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. The university was named ...

André Deutsch Publishing Archive at the McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa
{{DEFAULTSORT:Deutsch, Andre 1917 births 2000 deaths 20th-century British businesspeople British book publishers (people) British Jews British people of Hungarian-Jewish descent Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Hungarian emigrants to the United Kingdom Hungarian Jews Jewish emigrants from Austria to the United Kingdom after the Anschluss People from Budapest People interned in the Isle of Man during World War II

Biography

In popular culture

Current imprint

See also

References

Further reading

External links