John Mackenzie Calder (25 January 1927 – 13 August 2018) was a

Scottish-Canadian Scottish Canadians are people of Scottish people, Scottish descent or cultural heritage, heritage living in Canada. As the third-largest ethnic group in Canada and amongst the first Europeans to settle in the country, Scottish people have made a ...

writer and

publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

who founded the company

Calder Publishing Calder Publications is a publisher of books. Since 1949, the company has published many books on all the arts, particularly subjects such as opera and painting, the theatre and critical and philosophical theory. Calder's authors have achieve ...

in 1949.

Biography

Calder was born in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

, Canada, into the Calder family associated with the brewing industry in

Alloa Alloa (Received Pronunciation ; educated Scottish pronunciation /ˈaloʊa/; gd, Alamhagh, possibly meaning "rock plain") is a town in Clackmannanshire in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. It is on the north bank of the Forth at the spot where ...

, Scotland, and spent his childhood in

Kinross Kinross (, gd, Ceann Rois) is a burgh in Perth and Kinross, Scotland, around south of Perth and around northwest of Edinburgh. It is the traditional county town of the historic county of Kinross-shire. History Kinross's origins are connect ...

, and studied at

Bishop's College School Bishop's College School or BCS is an English-language non-profit independent boarding prep school in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada for students in Grades 7 to 12.Thomson, Ashley; Lafortune, Sylvie (1999). Handbook of Canadian Boarding Schools. To ...

Sherbrooke Sherbrooke ( ; ) is a city in southern Quebec, Canada. It is at the confluence of the Saint-François and Magog rivers in the heart of the Estrie administrative region. Sherbrooke is also the name of a territory equivalent to a regional count ...

before studying economics in

Zürich Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...

, Switzerland, in the late 1940s. About 1950, Calder went into partnership with

Neville Armstrong Neville Spearman Armstrong (20 October 1913 – September 2008) was a British soldier, literary agent, and publisher. In the 1940s and early 1950s he was in partnerships with others, then from 1955 he operated his own publishing company called Ne ...

in a short-lived publishing enterprise called Spearman Calder. Calder was a friend of

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...

, becoming the main publisher of his prose-texts in Britain after the success of '' Waiting for Godot'' on the London stage in 1955–56. During the 1950s, Calder published the translated work of

Anton Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; 29 January 1860 Old Style date 17 January. – 15 July 1904 Old Style date 2 July.) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career ...

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...

Fyodor Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (, ; rus, Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский, Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy, p=ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj, a=ru-Dostoevsky.ogg, links=yes; 11 November 18219 ...

Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treat ...

and

Zola Zola may refer to: People * Zola (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * Zola (musician) (born 1977), South African entertainer * Zola (rapper), French rapper * Émile Zola, a major nineteenth-century French writer Plac ...

, including most of the work of

April FitzLyon April FitzLyon (22 April 1920 – 17 September 1998) was an English translator, biographer, and historian. Early life Born Cecily April Mead, at Langton Herring, Dorset, in 1920, she was educated as a small child in France and later at St Mary ...

, and was the first publisher to make

William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...

available in the United Kingdom. From 1963 to 1975, Calder was in partnership with

Marion Boyars Marion Ursula Boyars, ''née'' Asmus (26 October 1927 – 1 February 1999), was a British book publisher who in 1975 founded her own imprint, Marion Boyars Publishers. Biography She was born Marion Asmus in New York, daughter of German publisher ...

, and the company was known as Calder and Boyars. The championing of freedom of speech led to Calder's involvement in a number of prosecutions for obscenity, including one in 1966 for publishing

Hubert Selby Jr Hubert "Cubby" Selby Jr. (July 23, 1928 – April 26, 2004) was an American writer. Two of his novels, ''Last Exit to Brooklyn'' (1964) and ''Requiem for a Dream (novel), Requiem for a Dream'' (1978) explore worlds in the New York area and were ...

's ''

Last Exit to Brooklyn ''Last Exit to Brooklyn'' is a 1964 novel by American author Hubert Selby Jr. The novel takes a harsh, uncompromising look at lower class Brooklyn in the 1950s written in a brusque, everyman style of prose. Critics and fellow writers praised ...

''. While the initial trial resulted in a guilty verdict, the case was won on appeal, and effectively ended literary censorship in Britain. The last novelist to be signed to the company by John Calder personally was

Carole Morin Carole Morin is a Glasgow-born novelist who lives in Soho, London. She has had five novels published: ''Lampshades'', ''Penniless in Park Lane'', ''Dead Glamorous'', ''Spying on Strange Men'' and ''Fleshworld''. Morin's fiction is critically acc ...

whose ''Penniless in Park Lane'' he published in 2001. The imprint continues to publish

Howard Barker Howard Barker (born 28 June 1946) is a British playwright, screenwriter and writer of radio drama, painter, poet, and essayist writing predominantly on playwriting and the theatre. The author of an extensive body of dramatic works since the 197 ...

Tim Waterstone Sir Tim Waterstone (born 30 May 1939) is a British businessman and author. He is the founder of Waterstones, the United Kingdom-based bookselling retail chain, the largest in Europe. Early life Tim Waterstone was born on 30 May 1939 in Glasgow ...

, and other figures of literature both past and present. In 2002, John Calder opened The Calder Bookshop Theatre at 51 The Cut,

Waterloo, London Waterloo () is a district in Central London, and part of the Bishops ward of the London Borough of Lambeth. It is situated east of Charing Cross. The area is part of a business improvement district known as Waterloo Quarter, which includes The ...

. To celebrate his fifty years in publishing, the arts and politics a festschrift was produced. During 2006, Lou MacLoughlan and Louise Milne produced the documentary ''John Calder: A Life in Publishing'' commemorating his life. In April 2007, Calder sold his business to independent publishers Alma Books/Oneworld Classics; the imprint retained his name, while the rights to the non-theatrical work of Beckett were acquired by Faber. Calder was a co-founder of the

Traverse Theatre The Traverse Theatre is a theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded in 1963 by John Calder, John Malcolm, Jim Haynes and Richard Demarco. The Traverse Theatre company commissions and develops new plays or adaptations from contemporary pla ...

in Edinburgh. He was also responsible, along with

Sonia Orwell Sonia Mary Brownell (25 August 1918 – 11 December 1980), better known as Sonia Orwell, was the second wife of writer George Orwell. Sonia is believed to be the model for Julia, the heroine of ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''. Sonia collaborated with ...

and

Jim Haynes James Almand Haynes (10 November 1933 – 6 January 2021) was an American-born figure in the British "underground" and alternative/counter-culture scene of the 1960s. He was involved with the founding of Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre, the pape ...

, for devising and co-creating an International Writers' Conference held at the

Edinburgh International Festival The Edinburgh International Festival is an annual arts festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, spread over the final three weeks in August. Notable figures from the international world of music (especially classical music) and the performing arts are i ...

in 1962 and then a Drama Conference with

Kenneth Tynan Kenneth Peacock Tynan (2 April 1927 – 26 July 1980) was an English theatre critic and writer. Making his initial impact as a critic at ''The Observer'', he praised Osborne's ''Look Back in Anger'' (1956), and encouraged the emerging wave of ...

in 1963. These innovative events, intended to draw together writers from all over the world, were arguably a forerunner of the

Edinburgh Book Festival The Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF) is a book festival that takes place in the last three weeks of August every year in Charlotte Square in the centre of Scotland’s capital city, Edinburgh. Billed as ''The largest festival of its ...

, which was not founded for another twenty years. The experience of this first conference was revisited at a Book Festival discussion during the 2012 Edinburgh International Festival. John Calder also led a hectic life outside publishing. He was a major investor in the

Partisan Coffee House The Partisan Coffee House was a radical venue of the New Left, at 7 Carlisle Street in the Soho district of London. It was established by historian Raphael Samuel in 1958 in the aftermath of the Suez Crisis and the Soviet invasion of Hungary. It ...

, a radical

New Left The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, g ...

venue in

Soho Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develop ...

. In 1970, he stood for election as a Scottish

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

candidate for Kinross and Western Perthshire, finishing 4th. However, he was otherwise mainly known for his interests in the arts in general and his passion for opera in particular. In 1963 he founded and ran for some ten years Ledlanet Nights, a general festival of the arts, held in the hall of his then home, a baronial house at Ledlanet near

Milnathort Milnathort is a small town in the parish of Orwell in the county of Kinross-shire, Scotland and since 1996, the local council area of Perth and Kinross. The smaller neighbour of nearby Kinross, Milnathort has a population of around 2,000 peopl ...

. He published his autobiography, ''Pursuit: the Uncensored Memoirs of John Calder'', in 2001, and various other works related to Beckett. Towards the end of his life Calder published three books of poetry ''What's Wrong? What's Right?: Poems'' (1999), ''Solo: Collected Poems 1997-2007'' (2007), and ''Being – Seeing – Feeling – Healing – Meaning'' (2012).

Personal life

Calder was married to Christya Myling from 1954 to 1961. They have a daughter named Jamie (b. 1954). Calder and

Bettina Jonic Bettina is a female name predominantly found in the Italian and German languages. This name has various interpreted meanings and origins. In Italian, Bettina originated as a diminutive of the names Elisabetta and Benedetta. Benedetta is the Ital ...

were married in 1961. That lasted until 1975, and produced another daughter, Anastasia (b. 1963). Calder married Sheila Colvin, who had been a friend and partner from his earliest involvement with the arts, and the

in Edinburgh. She is a former associate director of the Edinburgh International Festival and director of the

Aldeburgh Festival The Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts is an English arts festival devoted mainly to classical music. It takes place each June in the Aldeburgh area of Suffolk, centred on Snape Maltings Concert Hall. History of the Aldeburgh Festival Th ...

. The couple lived in Edinburgh and Paris.

References

External links

Calder Publications
– archived version of website as it was on 23 May 2002.
Calder and Boyars Manuscripts
– Lilly Library Manuscript Collections, Indiana University *Louise Jury, "Publish and be damned: A defender of free speech" – a profile of John Calder, ''The Independent on Sunday'', 21 March 2007. *Tom Tivnan, "I am Legend", a feature on John Calder on his sixtieth anniversary in publishing, ''The Bookseller'', 30 January 2009.

Biography

Personal life

References

External links

See also