Spotlight on The Maverick

We hosted a literary evening at the Art Workers’ Guild in Bloomsbury. The venue was filled with furniture, arts and crafts from the early 19th century, making it a grand and fitting location to discuss author and Circle Square member, Thomas Harding’s outstanding biography “The Maverick”, about the high society and influential publisher, George Weidenfeld.

Thomas was interviewed by fellow biographer and Circle Square member, Adam Begley, well-qualified for the task having previously written a seminal article in 1989 about Weidenfeld for the New York Times.

Thomas never met Weidenfeld but came across 75 boxes of private papers in a storage locker in east London, including his diaries. Alongside the publishing archives and conversations with friends and family, he was able to understand the trajectory of George Weidenfeld, from the time he set up his business in 1948 until he died in 2016.

The Maverick ignores a traditional chronological structure. Instead, each of the 19 chapters – other than the first which draws on a journal kept by his mother about his childhood – is centred around a different book that he published. Through these significant books, we come to understand what made Weidenfeld tick and what he achieved. At the most basic level, he was a publisher who rose from being a refugee from Vienna to a peerage. But he was much more.

Before starting his publishing career, George wrote ” The Goebbels Experiment: A Study of the Nazi Propaganda Machine”. It was extraordinary that this Jewish refugee from Austria would want to devote time to writing about how fascists came to power in Germany, but he believed you need to understand your enemies.

More than writing, however, what Weidenfeld loved was the business of books – the pitching, the packaging, the contracts. So, with Nigel Nicolson, he co-founded the publishing house Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Their relationship is a story of loyalty and betrayal and one which the book delves into with sensitivity.

Weidenfeld was a champion of ideas, and this led to one of his most historic moves of publishing “Lolita” in 1959. The British authorities threatened to seize and destroy any copies in the UK, but Weidenfeld was undeterred. He launched a campaign to have it published, took it to Parliament, and ultimately succeeded.

Weidenfeld was also a legendary networker, and his hospitality was famous. He hosted many parties, dinners, and lunches. He was driven by a profound fear of loneliness and was married four times, twice to heiresses who, it is suggested, contributed financially to his business.

Although he wasn’t religious, he had a great love for Israel. He was a fervent Zionist and worked for Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann. He was buried in Jerusalem, and despite his colourful and eventful personal life, his legacy endures as a visionary, creator, networker, entrepreneur, and most importantly in the 6000 books he published around the world.

About Thomas Harding

Thomas Harding is a bestselling author whose books have been translated into more than 16 languages. He has written for the Sunday Times, the Washington Post and the Guardian, among other publications. He is the author of HANNS AND RUDOLF, which won the JQ-Wingate Prize for Non-Fiction; THE HOUSE BY THE LAKE, which was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award; BLOOD ON THE PAGE, which won the Crime Writers’ Association “Golden Dagger Award for Non-Fiction” and FUTURE HISTORY, which was shortlisted for the German Children’s Literature Award 2021. His last book, WHITE DEBT, was published in January 2022.

About Adam Begley

For twelve years the books editor of The New York Observer, Adam Begley is the author of three biographies, Houdini: The Elusive American (Yale, 2020); The Great Nadar: The Man Behind the Camera (Tim Duggan Books, 2017); and Updike (Harper, 2014). A graduate of Harvard College, he received a doctorate in American Literature from Stanford University in 1989. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2010 and a Fellow at the Leon Levy Center for Biography in 2011. He has lived in England since 1997.