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“The best words in their best order” - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The publishing house Faber & Faber, more simply known today as Faber, was founded by Geoffrey Faber in 1929. Geoffrey Faber had originally entered publishing by partnering with the owners of the Scientific Press, Sir Maurice and Lady Gwyer, creating in 1925 the company Faber & Gwyer, which oversaw the publication of several important works by notable writers of the time. Chief amongst these perhaps was the young T.S. Eliot, whose two earliest collections of poetry (Poems 1909-1925 and Selected Poems) they published in 1925 and 1928 respectively, and whose relationship with the publishing house was to become so intertwined as to almost seem inseparable. Initially employed as the publisher's first literary adviser and editor, Eliot becaome a director in 1929 at the time Geoffrey Faber bought out Lady Gwyer and renamed the company 'Faber & Faber'. Over the following years Eliot was instrumental in shaping the Faber author list, attracting some of the most influential poets and playwrights of the modern, and modernist, era, including W.H. Auden, Ezra Pound, Stephen Spender, Samuel Beckett, John Osborne, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney.
From its inception, the company had a reputation for publishing innovative and high-quality literature. Whilst Faber & Faber was originally best known for championing poetry, it was soon also being lauded for its literary output, including William Golding, Lawrence Durrell (Alexandria Quartet) and murder-mystery writer P.D. James. This article focuses on the early to mid-period Faber publications, in vintage editions.
"April is the cruellest month" (The Waste Land)
The extended collection of T.S. Eliot's Collected Poems, featuring some of the poet's most famous works, including 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock', 'The Waste Land', the poems he wrote for Faber's Ariel series of pamphlets, and the first part of his 'Four Quartets' sequence, 'Burnt Norton'. An attractive vintage edition bound in the original publisher's cloth.
"No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother."
A very good, first edition example of the non-fiction output of Faber & Faber in their early years. Sanger recounts her life from early childhood until 1931, when a victory in her fight for the legalisation of birth control in the U.S. seemed near. The account of the highs and lows suffered in forging an organised movement devoted to planned parenthood is highly personal.
"Well I never! Was there ever A Cat so clever As Magical Mr. Mistoffelees!"
An attractive edition of Eliot's famous collection of humorous poems relating to cats, here in the same format and covers/jacket as the first edition published by Faber & Faber in 1939. The poems are written in the voice of an old possum (Eliot’s nickname for himself), who introduces various kinds of cats with amusing and fanciful names, personalities and stories. The poems are based on letters that Eliot wrote to his godchildren, and draw on his love of cats and his knowledge of literary and cultural references. Inspiration of course for the long-running Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Cats.
Another early edition of an attractive Faber & Faber production, this one of a series of books they published by the food writer and journalist Ambrose Heath. As with the first edition published in 1932, this much-loved book features the jacket artwork and illustrations by renowned illustrator Edward Bawden, and would grace any kitchen's bookshelf!
T.S. Eliot didn't limit himself to solely writing poetry! He also wrote plays, including this comic verse drama on the theme of identity and the confusion caused by mistaken or concealed parentage - sharing a somewhat intriguing parentage of its own perhaps, with Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. This is the first edition, in the original and distinctive Faber & Faber dust-jacket.
A great vintage Jazz book, an example of Faber & Faber's spin-off series specialising in particular themes, in this case from their 'Jazz Book Club'. Explore the Jazz music of the Roaring Forties with this charming guide, written by the suspiciously suitably named Stanley Dance.
One of the later generation of great Faber & Faber poets, Poet Laureate Ted Hughes was of course famously married to another of their stars, Sylvia Plath - alas a star that burned too brightly and too quickly. Hughes on the other hand wrote prolifically over a long writing career, as famous for his ground breaking works such as The Crow and this title, Lupercal, containing many of his unsettling 'animal poems', as for his revision of the classics, including Ovid and Shakespeare. He also created The Iron Man (and Woman!), among many other books for children.
"Philosophy and religion - what are they when the wind blows and the water gets up in lumps?"
One of the most famous Faber & Faber fiction authors was William Golding, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983 and the Booker Prize for this title Rites of Passage in 1980. His most famous novel, Lord of the Flies, was first published by Faber in 1954 and has sold over 25 million copies worldwide. First editions of Lord of the Flies can sell for in excess of £10,000 these days.
Faber has won many awards and accolades for its publishing over the years. In 2006, it was named the KPMG Publisher of the Year; the company also has thirteen Nobel Laureates and six Booker Prize-winners under its belt. Today, Faber & Faber is one of the most respected and successful independent publishers in the world. The company continues to publish a wide range of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and children's books. Faber & Faber is also a leading publisher of academic books and reference works.
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