Publications by Rupert Hart-Davis

After serving in the Second World War, Hart-Davis returned to his pre-war occupation as a publisher. In 1946 he founded Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd, in partnership with David Garnett and Edward Young and with financial backing from Eric Linklater, Arthur Ransome, H. E. Bates, Geoffrey Keynes, and Celia and Peter Fleming. His own literary tastes dictated which books were accepted and which rejected. Frequently he turned down commercial successes because he thought little of the works' literary merit. He later said, "I usually found that the sales of the books I published were in inverse ratio to my opinion of them. That's why I established some sort of reputation without making any money."^[1]

When the firm started, paper was rationed; they used Garnett's ex-serviceman's ration, but only one such ration per firm could be used so they could not use that of Hart-Davis. They were given the allocation at cost of a Glasgow bookseller and occasional prewar publisher, Alan Jackson. They decided to start initially with reprints of dead authors, as if a new book became a best-seller they would not have paper for a reprint and the author would leave the firm. They made an exception for Stephen Potter's Gamesmanship which was a short book; they collected every ream of paper they could buy, and printed 25,000 copies. Likewise 25,000 copies of Eric Linklater's Sealskin Trousers (five short stories) were printed.^[2]

The firm had best-sellers such as Stephen Potter's Gamesmanship and Heinrich Harrer's Seven Years in Tibet, which sold more than 200,000 copies.^[3] Also in the early years Hart-Davis secured Ray Bradbury for his firm, recognising the quality of a science fiction author who also wrote poetry.^[4] Other good sellers were Peter Fleming, Eric Linklater and Gerald Durrell; but best-sellers were too few, and though the output of Rupert-Hart-Davis Ltd was regularly praised for the high quality of its printing and binding, that too was an expense that weighed the company down.^[5]

When G. M. Young's life of Stanley Baldwin was published in 1952, both Churchill and Beaverbrook threatened to sue if certain passages were not removed or altered. With the help of the lawyer Arnold Goodman an agreement was reached to replace the offending sentences, but they had the "hideously expensive" job of removing and replacing seven leaves from 7,580 copies.^[6]

By the middle of the 1950s, Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd could no longer sustain an independent existence and in 1956 it was absorbed into the Heinemann group.^[7] Heinemann sold the imprint to the American firm Harcourt Brace in 1961, who sold it to the Granada Group in 1963, when Hart-Davis retired from publishing, though remaining as non-executive chairman until 1968.^{[8][page needed]} Publications by the firm after Hart-Davis's retirement are included in the list. Hart-Davis continued to contribute some books to the company's lists after he retired.

The Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd logo was a woodcut of a fox, with a background of oak leaves. The company was based at No. 36 Soho Square, London W1 from 1950, when they moved from 53 Connaught Street. Initially they planned to publish eight books according to their first advertisement in The Bookseller, including Fourteen Stories by Henry James which was dated 1946 but did not actually appear until 14 February 1947. The annual book output according to Hart-Davis was: 1948, 16; 1949, 21; 1950, 25; 1951, 40; 1952, 37; (1953 not given); 1954, 41; 1955, 46; 1956, 45; 1957, 55 then 1962, 60.

Book series published over the years by Rupert Hart-Davis included the Reynard Library^[9][10] of reprints of works from the great English writers, the Mariners Library of reprints of nautical books,^[11][12] and the Soho Bibliographies started with W. B. Yeats by Allan Wade in 1951. In 2003 Thomas Tanselle characterized the Soho Bibliographies as a "publishing outlet for serious bibliographies encouraging the adoption of higher standards and eventually exerting a considerable influence on the form of descriptive bibliographies."^[13][14]

While under Granada's ownership, Hart-Davis merged with MacGibbon and Kee in 1972, forming Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, later known as Granada Publishing. William Collins, Sons acquired Granada Publishing in 1983,^[15] renaming it Grafton Books after the editorial offices' address.^[16]

• Ziegler, Philip: Rupert Hart-Davis, Man of Letters, Chatto and Windus, London, 2004. ISBN 0-7011-7320-3
• Hart-Davis, Rupert (1998). Halfway to Heaven: Concluding memoirs of a literary life. Stroud Gloucestershire: Sutton. pp. 22–54. ISBN 0-7509-1837-3.