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Harvill Secker
Harvill Secker is a British publishing company formed in 2005 from the merger of Secker & Warburg and the Harvill Press. History Secker & Warburg Secker & Warburg was formed in 1935 from a takeover of Martin Secker, which was in receivership, by Fredric Warburg and Roger Senhouse. The firm became renowned for its political stance, being both anti-fascist and anti-communist, a position that put them at loggerheads with the ethos of many intellectuals of the time. When George Orwell parted company with Communist Party sympathizer Victor Gollancz over his editing of ''The Road to Wigan Pier'' (1937), he took his next book ''Homage to Catalonia'' to Secker & Warburg, who published it in 1938. They also published, after 18 months of rejections and setbacks, ''Animal Farm'' (1945), and Orwell's subsequent books.Orwell, Sonia, and Ian Angus (eds), ''The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume 4: In Front of Your Nose (1945–1950)''. Penguin, 1970. Orwell ...
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Penguin Random House
Penguin Random House Limited is a British-American multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, with the merger of Penguin Books and Random House. Penguin Books was originally founded in 1935 and Random House was founded in 1927. It has more than 300 Publishing imprint, publishing imprints. Along with Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, Hachette, HarperCollins and Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Random House is considered one of the "Big Five (publishers), Big Five" English-language publishers. On April 2, 2020, Bertelsmann announced the completion of its purchase of Penguin Random House, which had been announced in December 2019, by buying Pearson plc's 25% ownership of the company. With the purchase, Bertelsmann became the sole owner of Penguin Random House. Bertelsmann's German-language publishing group Verlagsgruppe Random House will be completely integrated into Penguin Random House, adding 45 imp ...
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World Revolution (book)
''World Revolution, 1917–1936: The Rise and Fall of the Communist International'' was written by Trinidadian Marxist C. L. R. James and published in 1937 by Secker and Warburg. It was a pioneering Marxist analysis from a Trotskyist perspective of the history of revolutions during the interwar period and of the fundamental conflict between Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin after the Russian Revolution. James, who was a leading Trotskyist activist in Britain during the 1930s, outlined Russia's transition from communist revolution to a Stalinist totalitarian state bureaucracy, building on works such as Trotsky's ''The Revolution Betrayed''. James also provides an account of the ideological contestations within the Communist International, while examining its influence on the development of the Soviet Union and its changing role in struggles such as the German Revolution of 1918–1923, the Chinese Revolution of 1925–1927, and the Spanish Civil War. He was helped when writing it b ...
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Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock (born 18 December 1939) is an English writer, particularly of science fiction and fantasy, who has published a number of well-received literary novels as well as comic thrillers, graphic novels and non-fiction. He has worked as an editor and is also a successful musician. He is best known for his novels about the character Elric of Melniboné, which were a seminal influence on the field of fantasy in the 1960s and 1970s. As editor of the British science fiction magazine '' New Worlds'', from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the science fiction "New Wave" in the UK and indirectly in the United States, leading to the advent of cyberpunk. His publication of '' Bug Jack Barron'' (1969) by Norman Spinrad as a serial novel was notorious; in Parliament, some British MPs condemned the Arts Council of Great Britain for funding the magazine. In 2008, ''The Times'' named Moorcock in its list of "The ...
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Angus Wilson
Sir Angus Frank Johnstone-Wilson (11 August 191331 May 1991) was an English novelist and short story writer. He was one of England's first openly gay authors. He was awarded the 1958 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for '' The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot'' and later received a knighthood for his services to literature. Biography Wilson was born in Bexhill, Sussex, England, to an English father, William Johnstone-Wilson, and South African mother, Maude (née Caney), of a wealthy merchant family of Durban.Angus Wilson, Averil Gardner, Twayne Publishers, 1985, pg 4Angus Wilson, Jay L. Halio, Oliver & Boyd, 1964, pg 1 Wilson's grandfather had served in a prestigious Scottish army regiment, and owned an estate in Dumfriesshire, where William Johnstone-Wilson (despite being born at Haymarket) was raised, and where he subsequently lived. Wilson was educated at Westminster School and Merton College, Oxford, and in 1937 became a librarian in the British Museum's Department of Printed Boo ...
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Günter Grass
Günter Wilhelm Grass (; 16 October 1927 – 13 April 2015) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland). At age 17, he was conscription, drafted into the military and served from late 1944 in the ''Waffen-SS.'' He was taken as a prisoner of war by US forces at the end of the war in May 1945. He was released in April 1946. Trained as a stonemason and sculptor, Grass began writing in the 1950s. In his fiction, he frequently returned to the Danzig of his childhood. Grass is best known for his first novel, ''The Tin Drum'' (1959), a key text in European magic realism. It was the first book of his Danzig Trilogy, the other two being ''Cat and Mouse (novella), Cat and Mouse'' and ''Dog Years (novel), Dog Years''. His works are frequently considered to have a left-wing political dimension, and Grass was an active supporter of the Soci ...
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Alberto Moravia
Alberto Pincherle (; 28 November 1907 – 26 September 1990), known by his pseudonym Alberto Moravia ( , ), was an Italian novelist and journalist. His novels explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation and existentialism. Moravia is best known for his debut novel '' Gli indifferenti'' (''The Time of Indifference'' 1929) and for the anti-fascist novel ''Il conformista'' ('' The Conformist'' 1947), the basis for the film '' The Conformist'' (1970) directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. Other novels of his adapted for the cinema are ''Agostino'', filmed with the same title by Mauro Bolognini in 1962; '' Il disprezzo'' (''A Ghost at Noon'' or ''Contempt''), filmed by Jean-Luc Godard as ''Le Mépris'' (''Contempt'' 1963); ''La noia'' (''Boredom''), filmed with that title by Damiano Damiani in 1963 and released in the US as '' The Empty Canvas'' in 1964 and '' La ciociara'', filmed by Vittorio De Sica as '' Two Women'' (1960). Cédric Kahn's '' L'Ennui'' (1998) is another v ...
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Colette
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (; 28 January 1873 – 3 August 1954), known as Colette or Colette Willy, was a French author and woman of letters. She was also a Mime artist, mime, actress, and journalist. Colette is best known in the English-speaking world for her 1944 novella ''Gigi (novella), Gigi'', which was the basis for the Gigi (1958 film), 1958 film and the Gigi (musical), 1973 stage production of the same name. Her short story collection ''The Tendrils of the Vine'' is also famous in France. Early life Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette was born on 28 January 1873 in the village of Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye in the department of Yonne, Burgundy. Her father, Captain Jules-Joseph Colette (1829–1905) was a war hero. He was a Zouave of the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr, Saint-Cyr military school, who had lost a leg at :fr:Bataille de Melegnano, Melegnano in the Second Italian War of Independence. He was awarded a post as tax collector in the village of Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisa ...
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Simone De Beauvoir
Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (, ; ; 9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, nor was she considered one at the time of her death, she had a significant influence on both feminist existentialism and feminist theory. Beauvoir wrote novels, essays, short stories, biographies, autobiographies, and monographs on philosophy, politics, and social issues. She was best known for her "trailblazing work in feminist philosophy", '' The Second Sex'' (1949), a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism. She was also known for her novels, the most famous of which were '' She Came to Stay'' (1943) and '' The Mandarins'' (1954). Her most enduring contribution to literature are her memoirs, notably the first volume, ''Mémoires d'une jeune fille rangée'' (1958). She received the 1954 Prix Gonc ...
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Heinemann (book Publisher)
William Heinemann Ltd., with the imprint Heinemann, was a London-based publisher founded in 1890 by William Heinemann. Their first published book, 1890's The Bondman (novel), ''The Bondman'', was a huge success in the United Kingdom and launched the company. He was joined in 1893 by Sydney Pawling. Heinemann died in 1920 and Pawling sold the company to Doubleday (publisher), Doubleday, having worked with them in the past to publish their works in the United States. Pawling died in 1922 and new management took over. Doubleday sold his interest in 1933. Through the 1920s, the company was well known for publishing works by famous authors that had previously been published as Serial (literature), serials. Among these were works by H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, W. Somerset Maugham, George Moore (novelist), George Moore, Max Beerbohm and Henry James, among others. This attracted new authors to publish their first editions with the company, including Graham Greene, Edward Upward, J. B. Pr ...
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Searchlight Books
Searchlight Books was a series of essays published as hardback books, edited by T. R. Fyvel and George Orwell. The series was published by Secker & Warburg.Leab, Daniel J"George Orwell ''The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius''."/ref> The series was projected for 17 titles, of which ten were published during 1941-42, but bomb damage to Warburg's office and the destruction of his printer's paper stock led to the series being discontinued. The first in the series, '' The Lion and the Unicorn'', was published on 19 February 1941 with an initial run of 5,000 copies, but the number was raised to 7,500. A second printing of 5,000 copies was ordered in March 1941. It sold over 10,000 copies (and was among the most commercially successful of Orwell's books to that date). The destruction of the stock by bombs ended its sales. ;Publications by Searchlight Books included the following: *No 1: '' The Lion and the Unicorn'' (1941) by George Orwell *No 2: ''Offensive Again ...
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Lewis Mumford
Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a writer. He made significant contributions to social philosophy, American literary and cultural history, and the history of technology. Mumford was influenced by the work of Scottish theorist Sir Patrick Geddes and worked closely with his associate the British sociologist Victor Branford. Mumford was also a contemporary and friend of Frank Lloyd Wright, Clarence Stein, Frederic Osborn, Edmund N. Bacon, and Vannevar Bush. Life Early life and education Mumford was born in Flushing, Queens, New York, and graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1912. He studied at the City College of New York and The New School for Social Research, but became ill with tuberculosis and never finished his degree. In 1918 he joined the Navy to ...
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Mary Stanley Low
Mary Stanley Low (14 May 1912 – 9 January 2007) was a British and Cuban political activist, Trotskyist, surrealist poet, artist and Latin teacher. She is most known for the book ''Red Spanish Notebook: the first six months of revolution and the civil war''. Early life Low was born in 1912 in London, England, to Australian parents. She was educated in France and Switzerland, spoke English, French and Spanish, and travelled with her parents in Europe as a child. In her early career, Low worked as a Latin teacher, wrote for English magazines and edited ''Classics Chronicles'', a biannual magazine dedicated to the Latin language and the history of Rome. Activism in Europe Low met the Cuban surrealist poet Juan Ramón Breá (1905–1941) in 1933 in Paris. They befriended members of the French surrealist movement, such as the painter Óscar Domínguez, the painter Wifredo Lam and the poet Benjamin Péret. The couple became lovers and travelled extensively throughout Europe, i ...
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