Michael Joseph (26 September 1897 – 15 March 1958) was a British publisher and writer.

Early life and career

Joseph was born in

Upper Clapton Clapton is a district of East London, England, in the London Borough of Hackney. Clapton is divided into Upper Clapton, in the north, and Lower Clapton to the south. Clapton railway station lies north-east of Charing Cross. Geography and origi ...

, London. He served in the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurkha ...

during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, and then embarked on a writing career, his first book being ''Short Story Writing for Profit'' (1923). After a period as a literary agent for

Curtis Brown Curtis Lee "Curt" Brown Jr. (born March 11, 1956) is a former NASA astronaut and retired United States Air Force colonel. Background Colonel Brown was born March 11, 1956. He graduated from East Bladen High School in Elizabethtown, North Carol ...

, Joseph founded his own publishing imprint as a subsidiary of Victor Gollancz Ltd. Gollancz invested £4000 in Michael Joseph Ltd, established 5 September 1935. Joseph and

Victor Gollancz Sir Victor Gollancz (; 9 April 1893 – 8 February 1967) was a British publisher and humanitarian. Gollancz was known as a supporter of left-wing causes. His loyalties shifted between liberalism and communism, but he defined himself as a Chris ...

disagreed on many points and Michael Joseph bought out Gollancz Ltd in 1938 after Gollancz attempted to censor ''Across the Frontiers'' by Sir Philip Gibbs on political grounds. (Joseph published the first edition in 1938 and a revised edition the following May.) Joseph managed to build up an impressive list of authors, such as

H. E. Bates Herbert Ernest Bates (16 May 1905 – 29 January 1974), better known as H. E. Bates, was an English writer. His best-known works include ''Love for Lydia'', '' The Darling Buds of May'', and ''My Uncle Silas''. Early life H.E. Bates was ...

, C. S. Forester,

Monica Dickens Monica Enid Dickens, MBE (10 May 1915 – 25 December 1992) was an English writer, the great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens. Biography Known as "Monty" to her family and friends, she was born into an upper-middle-class London family to Henr ...

, and

Richard Llewellyn Richard Dafydd Vivian Llewellyn Lloyd (; 8 December 1906 – 30 November 1983), known by his pen name Richard Llewellyn ( , ), was an English-born novelist of Welsh descent, who is best remembered for his 1939 novel '' How Green Was My V ...

Personal life

Joseph married actress Hermione Gingold in 1918 and they had two sons, Leslie and Stephen Joseph. (The

Stephen Joseph Theatre The Stephen Joseph Theatre is a theatre in the round in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England that was founded by Stephen Joseph and was the first theatre in the round in Britain. In 1955, Joseph established a tiny theatre in the round on ...

in Scarborough, established by the latter in 1955, was Britain's first

theatre in the round A theatre in the round, arena theatre or central staging is a space for theatre in which the audience surrounds the stage. Theatre-in-the-round was common in ancient theatre, particularly that of Greece and Rome, but was not widely explored ...

.) The couple divorced in 1926 and Joseph promptly married Edna Victoria Nellie Frost, with whom he had a daughter Shirley and son Richard. Richard established a very successful career in printing and then later running his own publishing company. He and his wife, Elizabeth, had a son, Adam Joseph and daughter, Rachel Joseph. Edna died in 1949 and Joseph's third marriage the next year was to Anthea Esther Hodson, with whom he had a daughter Charlotte and son Hugh. Anthea ran the publishing business after her husband's death.Victor Morrison
"Joseph , Anthea Esther (1924–1981)"
rev. ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004. Retrieved 9 April 2017.

Death

Michael Joseph died of septicaemia after a delayed medical operation in 1958.

Michael Joseph Ltd from 1958

After Joseph died, his widow Anthea Joseph rescued the publishing company Michael Joseph Ltd, from the ensuing crisis. In 1985, Michael Joseph Ltd was acquired by

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.e leading commercial fiction and non-fiction imprint of Penguin Books", specialising in "women’s fiction, crime, thrillers, cookery, memoirs and lifestyle books".

Books written by Michael Joseph

* ''Short Story Writing for Profit'' (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1923) * ''Journalism for Profit'' (1924) * ''The Commercial Side of Literature'' (Hutchinson, 1925) * ''How to Write a Short Story'' (Hutchinson, 1926) * ''How to Write Serial Fiction'' (Hutchinson, 1927); US edition, Holt, 1928, "by Michael Joseph and Marten Cumberland" * ''The Magazine Story: with ten examples analysed by Michael Joseph'' (Hutchinson, 1928) * ''The Autobiography of a Journalist'' (Hutchinson, 1929), ed. and introduced by Josep
The autobiography of a journalist
– uncertain role * ''Cat's Company'' (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1930), "illustrations ... are from drawings made by a celebrated German artist, B. F. Dolbin"; later illus. Clare Dawson (Chicago: Ziff-Davis, 1947) * ''A Book of Cats, being twenty drawings by Foujita; poems in prose by Michael Joseph'' (New York:

Covici-Friede Pascal Avram "Pat" Covici (November 4, 1885–October 14, 1964) was a Romanian Jewish-American book publisher and editor, best known for his close associations with authors such as John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, and many more noted American literar ...

, 1930), artwork by Tsuguharu Foujita * ''This Writing Business'' ( Faber & Faber, 1931), 32 pp * ''Puss in Books: A Collection of Stories about Cats'' (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1932), ed. Elizabeth Drew and Joseph, illus. A. R. Wheelan * ''Heads or Tails'' (1933), with Selwyn Johnson * ''Discovery, A Play in Three Acts'' (Gollancz, 1934) * ''Kittens and Cats'' (Racine: Whitman, 1938) * ''The Sword in the Scabbard'' (Joseph, 1942) * ''Charles: The Story of a Friendship'' (Joseph, 1943), 91 pp. * ''Complete Writing for Profit'' (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1938), 1097 pp. * ''The Adventure of Publishing'' (London: Allan Wingate, 1949) * ''Best Cat Stories'' (Faber, 1952), ed. Joseph, illus. Eileen Mayo

Authors and series published by Michael Joseph Ltd

Authors on Michael Joseph Ltd.’s list included

, Vicki Baum, Joyce Cary,

, C. S. Forester, Paul Gallico, Richard Gordon, Barry Hines, D. F. Karaka,

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, a ...

Vita Sackville-West Victoria Mary, Lady Nicolson, Order of the Companions of Honour, CH (Birth name, née Sackville-West; 9 March 1892 – 2 June 1962), usually known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English author and garden designer. Sackville-West was a su ...

and

Derek Tangye Derek Alan Trevithick Tangye (29 February 1912 – 26 October 1996) was a British author who lived in Cornwall for nearly fifty years. He wrote nineteen books which became known as ''The Minack Chronicles'', about his simple life on a clifftop ...

. Book series published by the firm included the Carfax Editions, Mermaid Books, The Minack Chronicles and The Rosemary Library.Publishers & Series List
owu.edu. Retrieved 5 October 2022.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Joseph, Michael 1897 births 1958 deaths Publishers (people) from London English memoirists English self-help writers People from Upper Clapton Deaths from sepsis British Army personnel of World War I 20th-century English businesspeople