While I cannot find anything on Alan Williams, his English
publisher is indeed an interesting type:
An eccentric scion of the Marks & Spencer family and one
of the most innovative publishers of the 20th century,
Anthony Blond was born into the Manchester Jewish haute
bourgeoisie. As a publisher he nurtured talents as diverse as
Harold Robbins and Jean Genet, Spike Milligan and Graham
Greene.
Jew Made In England
Anthony
Blond
Jew
Made in England is a Rake's Progress by one of the great
eccentrics and, without doubt, one of the most innovative and
idiosyncratic publishers of the twentieth century.
Charismatic, daring and outrageous, Anthony Blond harvested
talents as diverse as Harold Robbins and Jean Genet, Spike
Milligan and Graham Greene. An inveterate promoter of the
young, he gave over seventy writers their first chance.
Although Blond's various publishing enterprises all came to
assorted grief, he left behind a legacy of brilliance which
few others will ever match. Along the way Blond encountered
many of the great and not so good of our times, providing him
with a treasure chest of wonderfully entertaining anecdotes
about figures as illustrious as John Betjeman, as notorious
as Robert Maxwell and as obscure as Sir Anthony de Hoghton, a
wealthy profligate who ended up a beggar in Sloane Square, in
sharp contrast to the fate of fellow Blond cronies Jimmy
Goldsmith, John Aspinall and A
lan Clark.
Anthony Blond has
produced an intimate, often touching memoir of his childhood,
his education and his bizarre collection of relatives, wives,
children and friends. Blond writes frankly and hilariously
about his bisexuality, whether running aground with a young
Sarah Miles on the Beaulieu River or running amok in
Australia with a handsome young beach boy, and, most
movingly, of his profound awareness of his own Jewishness.
Funny, erudite, sharp and slyly self-deprecating, Jew Made in
England is a delightful celebration of a free spirit which no
social, sexual, racial, religious or geographical boundary
has been able to contain.
Anthony Blond was born in
1928. In 1952 he left the family firm, which made underwear
for Marks & Spencer, to start his own literary agency. He
subsequently created three publishing businesses, guaranteed
Private Eye's overdraft, initiated a literary agency in Japan
and a radio station in Manchester, and stood for Parliament.
He is the author of two books on publishing, and a novel,
Family Business. Having owned houses in places as far flung
as Sri Lanka, Corfu, New York and Islington, he now lives in
France with his second wife and second son.
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