Andre Deutsch, who died on April 10th, aged 82, belonged to a breed of publishers that existed, and occasionally flourished, before accountants and computers took over. It was an age when publishers were entrepreneurs of the imagination, seeking quality, proud of the influence and longevity of their discoveries and exultant if lucky enough to be associated with a genius.
He frequently came up with surprises during crises. His quite frequent mistakes stemmed from his being, as a foreigner, never quite sure of his status in the eyes of others. He was swimming in a sea with different currents from those to be found in European publishing, with its respectful gravity - in contrast to the insular, post-war British scene, with its tendency to frivolity. He was quick to sense a slight, suspicious with strangers, and unable to conceal a certain arrogance toward those less quick-witted than himself.
Born in Budapest, he was educated there and in Vienna. With the Anschluss, and because he was Jewish, he left for Zurich, where he had an uncle who eventually helped him get to England. At the outbreak of the second World War, he was interned on the Isle of Man as an enemy alien, and a meeting there with a European publisher persuaded him to enter the profession. When released in 1942, he went to work for Nicholson and Watson; transferred to the technical book and trade journal publisher Ernest Benn, where he became sales manager; and started his own company, Allan Wingate, in 1945.
He was backed by private investors and, having underestimated his capital needs, kept bringing new members on to the board. These tended to be public school or bridge party types, contemptuous of Andre Deutsch's accented English and East European background. Anthony Gibb, son of historian Sir Philip, became chairman and, having his own publishing ambitions, ousted him.
In 1951, with help and advice from Stanley Rubinstein, the publishing solicitor, he started Andre Deutsch Ltd.
At Wingate's, he had successfully published his compatriot George Mikes's light-hearted satire on the English, How To Be An Alien, with illustrations by Nicholas Bentley; the former remained with him as an author, the latter as a board member. Diana Athill joined as general editorial and managerial assistant.
His big break came with the von Papen memoirs, the diary of Hitler's most able diplomat. He sold the serial rights to a Sunday newspaper for £30,000, which made it a bestseller. He followed with other books from Germany - he had a great advantage over his monoglot English rivals - but received some criticism for his willingness to publish books by writers from Britain's recent enemy. At the Frankfurt Book Fair he was a star, the British publisher that Europeans knew best. The prestige went to his head and he undertook to publish in English the official biography of the German president Theodor Heuss, who was unknown outside Germany. The president visited his stand at the fair, but the British sales were only to a few libraries.
Needing some bestsellers, he began to look to America, where refugees like himself were numerous in New York publishing. He came up with Norman Mailer's The Naked And The Dead, a soldier's account of the Korean war. The Sunday Times admonished that it should not be left around to contaminate innocent "women-folk"; it went on to sell in the region of 150,000 copies in hardback.
During the 1950s and 1960s he was to establish himself as one of Britain's most dynamic publishers. His authors, of whom he was very proud and some of whose works are regarded as contemporary classics, include Brian Moore; Laurie Lee; Philip Roth; John Updike; J.K. Galbraith and Arthur Schlesinger.
At one point, again in financial difficulties, Andre Deutsch sold himself out to Time-Life Books, with a contract to stay on as publisher, but the arrangement did not work and he bought himself out again.
When he felt the time had come to retire (and the 1980s were not a happy time for independent publishers, with the banks increasingly unhelpful), he accepted an offer from Tom Rosenthal. He expected to remain as a consultant, but soon found his presence was not welcome.
Andre Deutsch never married. His main relaxation was skiing, until age and illness made it no longer possible.
Andre Deutsch: born 1917; died, April 2000 99146609