Boni & Liveright (pronounced "BONE-eye" and "LIV-right") is an American
trade book publisher established in 1917 in New York City by
Albert Boni and
Horace Liveright
Horace Brisbin Liveright (pronounced "LIVE-right," anglicized by Horace's father from the German ''Liebrecht;'' 10 December 1884 – 24 September 1933) was an American publisher and stage producer. With Albert Boni, he founded the Modern Lib ...
. Over the next sixteen years the firm, which changed its name to Horace Liveright, Inc., in 1928 and then Liveright, Inc., in 1931, published over a thousand books. Before its bankruptcy in 1933 and subsequent reorganization as Liveright Publishing Corporation, Inc., it had achieved considerable notoriety for editorial acumen, brash marketing, and challenge to contemporary obscenity and censorship laws. Their logo is of a cowled monk.
It was the first American publisher of
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most o ...
,
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...
,
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...
,
E. E. Cummings
Edward Estlin Cummings, who was also known as E. E. Cummings, e. e. cummings and e e cummings (October 14, 1894 - September 3, 1962), was an American poet, painter, essayist, author and playwright. He wrote approximately 2,900 poems, two autobi ...
,
Jean Toomer
Jean Toomer (born Nathan Pinchback Toomer; December 26, 1894 – March 30, 1967) was an American poet and novelist commonly associated with the Harlem Renaissance, though he actively resisted the association, and with modernism. His reputatio ...
,
Hart Crane,
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 w ...
,
Anita Loos
Corinne Anita Loos (April 26, 1888 – August 18, 1981) was an American actress, novelist, playwright and screenwriter. In 1912, she became the first female staff screenwriter in Hollywood (film industry), Hollywood, when D. W. Griffith put h ...
, and the
Modern Library series. In addition to being the house of
Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser (; August 27, 1871 – December 28, 1945) was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm mora ...
and
Sherwood Anderson
Sherwood Anderson (September 13, 1876 – March 8, 1941) was an American novelist and short story writer, known for subjective and self-revealing works. Self-educated, he rose to become a successful copywriter and business owner in Cleveland and ...
throughout the 1920s, it notably published
T.S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National B ...
's ''
The Waste Land
''The Waste Land'' is a poem by T. S. Eliot, widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century and a central work of modernist poetry. Published in 1922, the 434-line poem first appeared in the United Kingdom in the Octob ...
'',
Isadora Duncan
Angela Isadora Duncan (May 26, 1877 or May 27, 1878 – September 14, 1927) was an American dancer and choreographer, who was a pioneer of modern contemporary dance, who performed to great acclaim throughout Europe and the US. Born and raised in ...
's ''My Life'',
Nathanael West
Nathanael West (born Nathan Weinstein; October 17, 1903 – December 22, 1940) was an American writer and screenwriter. He is remembered for two darkly satirical novels: ''Miss Lonelyhearts'' (1933) and ''The Day of the Locust'' (1939), set r ...
's ''
Miss Lonelyhearts
''Miss Lonelyhearts'' is a novella by Nathanael West. He began writing it early in 1930 and completed the manuscript in November 1932. Published in 1933, it is an Expressionist black comedy set in New York City during the Great Depression. It is ...
'',
Djuna Barnes
Djuna Barnes (, June 12, 1892 – June 18, 1982) was an American artist, illustrator, journalist, and writer who is perhaps best known for her novel ''Nightwood'' (1936), a cult classic of lesbian fiction and an important work of modernist liter ...
's ''Ryder'',
Ezra Pound's ''Personae'',
John Reed's ''
Ten Days That Shook the World
''Ten Days That Shook the World'' (1919) is a book by the American journalist and socialist John Reed. Here, Reed presented a firsthand account of the 1917 Russian October Revolution. Reed followed many of the most prominent Bolsheviks closely ...
'', and
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Nobel Prize in Literature, literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama tech ...
's plays. In his biography of Horace Liveright, ''Firebrand'', author
Tom Dardis
Tom Dardis (1926 – November 2, 2001) was an American author and editor. He served as editor for multiple publishing houses such as Avon Books and Berkley Publishing Corporation. Dardis was also an educator who taught at such institutions as ...
noted B&L was "the most magnificent yet messy publishing firm this century has seen." In 1974 Liveright's remaining backlist was bought by
W.W. Norton
W. W. Norton & Company is an American publishing company based in New York City. Established in 1923, it has been owned wholly by its employees since the early 1960s. The company is known for its Norton Anthologies (particularly ''The Norton An ...
. Norton revived the name as an imprint in 2012.
Early history
Beginnings; ''The Modern Library''
![Boni & Liveright second colophon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Boni_%26_Liveright_second_colophon.jpg)
With outside investment that principally came from Horace Liveright's father-in-law, paper executive Herman Elsas, Boni & Liveright incorporated on February 16, 1917. Though Liveright had no publishing experience (he had been a bond and paper salesman), Albert Boni recently had run a Greenwich Village bookshop with his brother, Charles. Boni's association with Village bohemia and his earlier success publishing a line of inexpensive, pocket-sized classics called the
Little Leather Library served as inspiration for B&L's debut list called ''
The Modern Library
The Modern Library is an American book publishing imprint and formerly the parent company of Random House. Founded in 1917 by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright as an imprint of their publishing company Boni & Liveright, Modern Library became a ...
of the World's Best Books.'' A mix of well-known and hard-to-find literature priced at 60 cents apiece and bound in lambskin, the ''Modern Library'' in 1917, according to biographer Walker Gilmer, "reflected the avant-garde influence of
lbert Boni'sWashington Square book-borrowing friends: Wilde, ''
The Picture of Dorian Gray
''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' is a philosophical novel by Irish writer Oscar Wilde. A shorter novella-length version was published in the July 1890 issue of the American periodical '' Lippincott's Monthly Magazine''.''The Picture of Dorian G ...
''; Strindberg, ''
Married
Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between t ...
''; Kipling, ''
Soldiers Three
''Soldiers Three'' is a collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. The three soldiers of the title are Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris, who had also appeared previously in the collection '' Plain Tales from the Hills''. The current version, ...
''; Stevenson, ''
Treasure Island
''Treasure Island'' (originally titled ''The Sea Cook: A Story for Boys''Hammond, J. R. 1984. "Treasure Island." In ''A Robert Louis Stevenson Companion'', Palgrave Macmillan Literary Companions. London: Palgrave Macmillan. .) is an adventure no ...
''; Wells, ''
The War in the Air
''The War in the Air: And Particularly How Mr. Bert Smallways Fared While It Lasted'' is a military science fiction novel written by H. G. Wells.
The novel was written in four months in 1907, and was serialized and published in 1908 in ''Th ...
''; Ibsen, ''
A Doll's House
''A Doll's House'' ( Danish and nb, Et dukkehjem; also translated as ''A Doll House'') is a three-act play written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It premiered at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879, having be ...
'', ''
An Enemy of the People'', and ''
Ghosts'';
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
, ''The Red Lily''; de Maupassant, ''
Mademoiselle Fifi, and Other Stories''; Nietzsche, ''
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
''Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None'' (german: Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen), also translated as ''Thus Spake Zarathustra'', is a work of philosophical fiction written by German philosopher Friedrich Niet ...
''; Dostoyevsky, ''
Poor Folk
''Poor Folk'' (russian: Бедные люди, ''Bednye lyudi''), sometimes translated as ''Poor People'', is the first novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky, written over the span of nine months between 1844 and 1845. Dostoevsky was in financial difficul ...
'';
Maeterlinck
Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (29 August 1862 – 6 May 1949), also known as Count (or Comte) Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was Flemish but wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize i ...
, ''A Miracle of Saint Anthony''; and Schopenhauer, ''
Studies in Pessimism''."
Boni & Liveright, like other new publishers of the era such as
Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers in ...
, sold to customers predominantly in the Northeast and California.
The success was immediate and demand for more titles forced Boni & Liveright to expand the initial list to 36 before the year ended. It would quickly become the cornerstone for the young company and allow the firm to take on riskier books and high-profile authors. The sale of the Modern Library to
Bennett Cerf
Bennett Alfred Cerf (May 25, 1898 – August 27, 1971) was an American writer, publisher, and co-founder of the American publishing firm Random House. Cerf was also known for his own compilations of jokes and puns, for regular personal appearanc ...
has been noted by biographer Tom Dardis as a critical tactical error and major loss of revenue that likely crippled the firm in their final years of operation.
Horace Liveright and modernism
Only a year and a half after co-founding Boni & Liveright, Albert Boni departed the company due to differences with Horace Liveright. Boni claimed that he won a coin toss over the opportunity to buy out the other's share, but then his backing investor dropped out, leaving him no alternative than to sell to Liveright. Though not as politically extreme as Albert Boni, Horace Liveright enjoyed the mantle of radical publisher as he quickly established an openness to new literary trends and avant-garde ideas.
In 1917, Alfred Knopf, then another newly established New York publishing house, published
Ezra Pound's ''Lustra'' to poor reviews and sales. The following year Boni & Liveright agreed to publish a collection of prose by Pound, ''
Instigations'', which included an essay by
Ernest Fenellosa. Boni & Liveright bought Pound's next volume of poetry, ''Poems: 1918–1921''; the publisher's inclusion of the date in the title was considered daring and innovative.
In addition to publishing Ezra Pound's poetry, Liveright engaged Pound as a translator and scout in Europe. Pound would encourage his friends
T.S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National B ...
and
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...
to publish their latest works with Horace Liveright, who Pound praised "as a pearl among publishers." While ''
The Waste Land
''The Waste Land'' is a poem by T. S. Eliot, widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century and a central work of modernist poetry. Published in 1922, the 434-line poem first appeared in the United Kingdom in the Octob ...
'' would appear on their list in 1922, Boni & Liveright would ultimately give up their pursuit of ''
Ulysses
Ulysses is one form of the Roman name for Odysseus, a hero in ancient Greek literature.
Ulysses may also refer to:
People
* Ulysses (given name), including a list of people with this name
Places in the United States
* Ulysses, Kansas
* Ulysse ...
'', due to the overwhelming legal challenges surrounding the controversial work. It would finally be published in America by Bennett Cerf, a former vice president of Boni & Liveright, at
Random House
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
in 1934. Liveright published Pound's ''
Personae
A persona (plural personae or personas), depending on the context, is the public image of one's personality, the social role that one adopts, or simply a fictional character. The word derives from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatri ...
'' in 1925, retaining rights to the work well into the 1940s after the company collapsed and merged with Random House.
[Sieburth (2010), 355–356]
Despite being commercially risky for the times, Boni & Liveright would introduce many now influential experimental writers to the American reading public, including Cummings, Crane,
H.D., Hemingway, and Toomer. The two Faulkner novels (''
Soldiers' Pay'' and ''
Mosquitoes
Mosquitoes (or mosquitos) are members of a group of almost 3,600 species of small Diptera, flies within the family Culicidae (from the Latin ''culex'' meaning "gnat"). The word "mosquito" (formed by ''mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish ...
'') are considered among the lesser works of the
Nobel prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
-winner but still contain modernist devices (such as
stream of consciousness
In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode or method that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind" of a narrator. The term was coined by Daniel Oliver in 1840 in ''First L ...
) that reflect the direction he took in later fiction.
The one exception to this risk-taking investment was
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Nobel Prize in Literature, literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama tech ...
. While most of Liveright's avant-garde publications failed to earn out their advances during the 1920s (
Hart Crane would die $210 in debt to the house), O'Neill's plays were frequently amongst the firm's top-selling books. After winning the
Pulitzer Prize for ''
Beyond the Horizon'' in 1920, the Greenwich Village playwright reached national attention. The B&L edition of ''
Strange Interlude
''Strange Interlude'' is an experimental play in nine acts by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. O'Neill began work on it as early as 1923 and developed its scenario in 1925; he wrote the play between May 1926 and the summer of 1927, and complete ...
'' would sell over 100,000 copies, becoming the bestselling play of the decade. In all Liveright would publish thirteen of O'Neill's dramas, but would have to relinquish those rights in 1933 during bankruptcy proceedings.
Society for the Suppression of Vice
If publishing the literary new guard brought more acclaim than cash flow to the press, sex, or the suggestion of it, created commercial opportunity for Boni & Liveright. Many of its bestselling books were considered scandalous or titillating for the period, inviting the scrutiny of figures like
John Sumner and the
New York Society for the Suppression of Vice
The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (NYSSV or SSV) was an institution dedicated to supervising the morality of the public, founded in 1873. Its specific mission was to monitor compliance with state laws and work with the courts and di ...
. Throughout the 1920s – decades before
Barney Rosset
Barnet Lee "Barney" Rosset, Jr. (May 28, 1922 – February 21, 2012) was a pioneering American book and magazine publisher. An avant-garde taste maker, he founded Grove Press in 1951 and ''Evergreen Review'' in 1957, both of which gave him platf ...
's landmark legal battles at
Grove Press – Horace Liveright frequently fought off censors and obscenity legislation. The publicity surrounding these battles only stoked the curiosity of readers further and forced the publisher to reprint otherwise unexceptionally sensational works.
![NewYorkSocietyForTheSuppressionOfVice](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/NewYorkSocietyForTheSuppressionOfVice.jpg)
The publisher mostly got around these challenges by issuing limited editions available only by subscription (as in the case of
George Moore and
Waldo Frank
Waldo David Frank (August 25, 1889 – January 9, 1967) was an American novelist, historian, political activist, and literary critic, who wrote extensively for ''The New Yorker'' and ''The New Republic'' during the 1920s and 1930s. Frank is best ...
's novels). Yet B&L could not escape the scorn of John Sumner who, as successor to
Anthony Comstock
Anthony Comstock (March 7, 1844 – September 21, 1915) was an anti-vice activist, United States Postal Inspector, and secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (NYSSV), who was dedicated to upholding Christian morality. He o ...
at the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, regularly threatened suit against publishers of risqué or prurient material. The New York Society, alongside Boston's
Watch and Ward Society
The New England Watch and Ward Society (founded as the New England Society for the Suppression of Vice) was a Boston, Massachusetts, organization involved in the censorship of books and the performing arts from the late 19th century to the middle ...
(giving rise to the term "Banned in Boston"), informally enforced prevailing state laws prohibiting the distribution of inappropriate literature. What defined inappropriate would lead to some of the most notable fights between Liveright and Sumner.
The first was over a modern translation of
Petronius's ''
Satyricon
The ''Satyricon'', ''Satyricon'' ''liber'' (''The Book of Satyrlike Adventures''), or ''Satyrica'', is a Latin work of fiction believed to have been written by Gaius Petronius, though the manuscript tradition identifies the author as Titus Petr ...
'', a nearly 2,000-year-old classic that Sumner deemed offensive for a passage referring to orgies and homosexuality. The case against Boni & Liveright would drag out for several months in the courts and in the press (where Liveright passionately spoke out against censorship) but be ultimately dismissed by a grand jury in October 1922. Undeterred, Sumner returned by working with state assemblymen to propose a Clean Books Bill in the Albany legislature.
Introduced in 1923, the bill broadly defined objectionable literature so any portion of obscene, lewd, or indecent text could serve as sufficient evidence to have a whole work banned. Liveright was nearly alone amongst New York publishers to publicly oppose the legislation, writing prominent editorials in defense of free speech and leading a contingent of authors, journalists, and lawyers to fight the bill in Albany in April 1923. His lobbying efforts were bolstered by the support of James "Jimmy" Walker, future mayor of New York but then a minority leader of the State Senate, who coached Liveright on how to lobby the legislators. On May 3, 1923, after a rousing speech by Walker belittling the bill, in which he joked "No woman was ever ruined by a book", the Clean Books Bill was defeated.
Though the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and the Watch and Ward Society would threaten the publisher several more times in the late 1920s – notably for the novels ''Replenishing Jessica'' by
Maxwell Bodenheim
Maxwell Bodenheim (May 26, 1892 – February 6, 1954) was an American poet and novelist. A literary figure in Chicago, he later went to New York where he became known as the King of Greenwich Village Bohemians. His writing brought him intern ...
and ''
An American Tragedy
''An American Tragedy'' is a 1925 novel by American writer Theodore Dreiser. He began the manuscript in the summer of 1920, but a year later abandoned most of that text. It was based on the notorious murder of Grace Brown in 1906 and the trial of ...
'' by Theodore Dreiser – Liveright and his lawyers (including
Arthur Garfield Hays
Arthur Garfield Hays (December 12, 1881 – December 14, 1954) was an American lawyer and champion of civil liberties issues, best known as a co-founder and general counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union and for participating in notable ca ...
and
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Seward Darrow (; April 18, 1857 – March 13, 1938) was an American lawyer who became famous in the early 20th century for his involvement in the Leopold and Loeb murder trial and the Scopes "Monkey" Trial. He was a leading member of t ...
) often won in the court of public opinion. Only when on the verge of bankruptcy in 1930 did Liveright capitulate to Sumner and destroy the plates of "an allegedly obscene work called ''Josephine, the Great Lover''.
Notable staff
Throughout the teens, '20s and early '30s, many notable writers, editors, and future publishers worked for Boni & Liveright. The core of his staff included T.R. Smith in editorial,
Manuel Komroff
Manuel Komroff (September 7, 1890 – 10 December 1974) was an American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, editor and translator. He was born in New York where he began his working life as a journalist. He also spent some time in Russia dur ...
in production,
Julian Messner in sales, and Arthur Pell (who would ultimately succeed Liveright as president) in accounting.
T.R. "Tommy" Smith was hired in 1919 to replace Thomas Seltzer, Albert Boni's uncle, as editor-in-chief. Well-connected and exceptionally bright, Smith, next to Horace Liveright, became B&L's most important editorial guiding force. An "authority on the erotic and the pornographic and, happily, one who knew the difference between them,
eseemed to be able to smell out best-sellers and masterpieces alike." He would stay with the firm through its bankruptcy in 1933.
In 1919, Liveright also hired
Edward Bernays
Edward Louis Bernays ( , ; November 22, 1891 − March 9, 1995) was an American theorist, considered a pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, and referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations". His best-known ca ...
to consult on publicity. Bernays, who was
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...
's nephew and a pioneer of modern public relations, helped define propaganda as an effective marketing tool. According to Bernays's memoirs Liveright singled out five titles for him to initially promote: "they covered sex, prohibition, psychoanalysis, radicalism, women's place in society." He would publish two of his influential books on public relations with Boni & Liveright as well as broker Freud's association with the publishing house.
Richard Simon, who co-founded
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest pu ...
in 1924, worked in sales for B&L during the early '20s.
Bennett Cerf
Bennett Alfred Cerf (May 25, 1898 – August 27, 1971) was an American writer, publisher, and co-founder of the American publishing firm Random House. Cerf was also known for his own compilations of jokes and puns, for regular personal appearanc ...
was vice president between 1923 and 1925 before buying the Modern Library list and later starting, with
Donald Klopfer, Random House. Donald Friede, another vice president, co-founded
Covici-Friede publishers.
Lillian Hellman
Lillian Florence Hellman (June 20, 1905 – June 30, 1984) was an American playwright, prose writer, memoirist and screenwriter known for her success on Broadway, as well as her communist sympathies and political activism. She was blacklisted aft ...
and the critic
Louis Kronenberger
Louis Kronenberger (December 9, 1904April 30, 1980) was an American literary critic (longest with ''Time'', (1938-1961), novelist, and biographer who wrote extensively on drama and the 18th century.
Background
Kronenberger was born in Cincinnat ...
were readers for Boni & Liveright. And several staff members, including
Isidor Schneider
Isidor Schneider (August 23, 1896 in Horodenka, Galicia, Austria–August 3, 1977 in Manhattan, New York City, New York) was an American poet, novelist and critic.
Career
Isidor Schneider was born in 1896 in Horodenka,"New York, Southern District ...
, Kronenberger, Komroff,
Edith M. Stern, and
Leane Zugsmith
Leane Zugsmith (18 January 1903 – 13 October 1969) was an American writer.
Biography
Zugsmith was born in Louisville, Kentucky on 18 January 1903 to Albert Zugsmith and Gertrude Appel. She lived in New York City, where she became a leftist jou ...
published books of their own with B&L.
Legacy
Because of its outside status, Boni & Liveright, along with the two other firms founded and run by Jewish-Americans in the late teens –
Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers in ...
and
Huebsch – took considerably more risks than the established and traditional publishers of the day.
Edward Bernays
Edward Louis Bernays ( , ; November 22, 1891 − March 9, 1995) was an American theorist, considered a pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, and referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations". His best-known ca ...
in his memoirs noted that until then other firms "were run like conservative banking houses." Bennett Cerf observed "There had never been a Jew in American publishing, which was a closed corporation to the rising tide of young people described in ''
Our Crowd
''Our Crowd: The Great Jewish Families of New York'' (1967) is a history book by American writer Stephen Birmingham. The book documents the lives of prominent New York Jewish families of the 19th century. Historian Louis Auchincloss called it " ...
''. Suddenly there had burst forth on the scene some bright young Jews who were upsetting all the old tenets of the publishing business – and the flashiest of all was certainly Liveright."
B&L's challenges to obscenity laws, innovative marketing, and its willingness to publish difficult, politically charged, or unconventional authors helped transform, according to Tom Dardis, "the staid, self-satisfied atmosphere of American publishing into an exciting, pulsing forum in which contemporary American writing could come of age."
Later history
Surviving bankruptcy
Though Boni & Liveright's titles were consistently on bestseller lists during the 1920s, the firm survived on the barest of margins. Lavish ad campaigns, expensive offices (where Liveright famously entertained his friends and authors at 61 West 48th Street), generous advances, and the loss of revenue from the Modern Library backlist stretched finances, but it would be Horace Liveright's poor investment decisions outside book publishing that ultimately jeopardized the company's solvency.
Described by colleagues as a gambler, Liveright frequently lost money on the stock market, particularly following the advice of his friend and banker,
Otto Kahn
Otto Hermann Kahn (February 21, 1867 – March 29, 1934) was a German-born American investment banker, collector, philanthropist, and patron of the arts. Kahn was a well-known figure, appearing on the cover of ''Time'' magazine and was sometime ...
.
[Egleston, 63] He also branched out in theatrical production and despite some successes (for example with the stage version of ''Dracula''), most Liveright-backed plays and musicals were financial disasters. Following the collapse of the stock market in 1929, book sales slumped and Horace Liveright was forced to sell the bulk of his shares in Horace Liveright, Inc. (as the firm was recently renamed), resigning from the company in August 1930. He worked briefly for film studios before he died from pneumonia and emphysema on September 24, 1933, at the age of forty-three. As its lists shrank in the early 1930s, so did the firm's revenues. Now under the helm of its longtime treasurer, Arthur Pell, Liveright Inc. fell into involuntary bankruptcy in May 1933, selling off many of their assets. However Pell did retain much of the backlist (including important works by Freud, Toomer, Loos, Cummings, and Crane) in a reorganization of the company called Liveright Publishing Corporation. That entity remained independent, publishing new books as well as repackaging backlist, until 1969 when it was sold to Harrison Blaine of New Jersey, Inc., a private holding company which also owned ''
The New Republic
''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hu ...
''.
[Egleston, 18] Between 1969 and 1974 a new staff attempted a revival, publishing about 50 original books and about 50 reissues from the backlist.
More recent developments
In September 1974,
W. W. Norton bought the company where it has remained a wholly owned subsidiary.
In April 2012 Liveright Publishing inaugurated its first original list in four decades. (See
Liveright Publishing (2012– ) Robert Weil is an Executive Editor and Vice President of the publishing imprint W.W. Norton / Liveright. From 2011 to 2022 he was the Editor-in-Chief and Publishing Director of Liveright, succeeded by Peter J. Simon in July, 2022.
Early life and ca ...
.)
References
Sources
*Dardis, Tom. (1995) ''Firebrand: The Life of Horace Liveright''. Random House.
*Egleston, Charles – editor. (2004) ''Dictionary of Literary Biography: The House of Boni & Liveright, 1917–1933: A Documentary Volume''. USA: Gale.
*Gilmer, Walker. (1970) ''Horace Liveright Publisher of the Twenties''. New York: David Lewis.
*Sieburth, Richard. "Editor's Afterword". in Ezra Pound's New Selected Poems and Translation. (2010). New York: New Directions.
*Welky, David. (2008) ''Everything was Better in America: Print Culture in the Great Depression''. University of Illinois.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boni and Liveright
1917 establishments in New York City
Book publishing companies based in New York City
Publishing companies established in 1917