B. W. Huebsch

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Benjamin W. Huebsch
US Passport Photo 1919
BornMarch 21, 1876
New York City, New York
DiedAugust 7, 1964
London, England
NationalityAmerican
OccupationPublisher
Known forpublishing German émigré authors
SpouseAlfhild Lamm
RelativesEdward Huebsch

Benjamin W. Huebsch (March 21, 1876 – August 7, 1964) was an American publisher in New York City in the early 20th century.[1]

Background

Huebsch was the son of Rabbi Adolphus Huebsch, who had immigrated to the United States from Hungary in 1866 and died in New York, 1884. He played violin and studied under composer and pianist Sam Franko.[2]

Career

Beginning work in his older brother's small print shop, which he gradually transformed into a publishing house.[3]

B. W. Huebsch (1900–1924)

In 1900, Huebsch established the publishing house B. W. Huebsch.[1]

Winesburg, Ohio (1919).[1][8][9]

He also published Georges Sorel's Réflexions sur la violence (1908) as Reflections on Violence, translated by T. E. Hulme and published by Huebsch in 1914.

Circa January 1918, B. W. Huebsch published the book The Poets of Modern France by Ludwig Lewisohn, A.M., Litt.D., Professor at the Ohio State University. This is a translation of major French poets into English. Quoting from the Preface: "In every age the critical conservatives have protested in the name of eternal principles which, alas, are not eternal at all."

The Freeman magazine (1920–1924)

Huebsch published The Freeman magazine from 1920 to 1924.[1]

The magazine's co-editors were

British MP) and Albert Jay Nock (a Libertarian whose autobiography Memoirs of a Superfluous Man influenced William F. Buckley Sr. and William F. Buckley Jr. among others). Neilson's wealthy wife, Helen Swift Neilson, financed the magazine.[10]

Contributors included: Charles A. Beard, William Henry Chamberlin, Thomas Mann, Lewis Mumford, Bertrand Russell, Lincoln Steffens, Louis Untermeyer, Thorstein Veblen and Suzanne La Follette (the more Libertarian[11] cousin of Senator Robert M. La Follette).

Viking Press (1925–1964)

In 1925 he merged his publishing house with the Viking Press, where he worked as an editor and vice president.[1][12]

At Viking, he published numerous German-speaking authors, including: Lion Feuchtwanger, Franz Werfel (though not Werfel's later controversial Class Reunion, published by Simon & Schuster in 1929 and translated by Whittaker Chambers[13]), Arnold Zweig, and Stefan Zweig.[1][14]

Further authors he published included: Irwin Edman, Rumer Godden, William White, Patrick White.

Associations

Huebsch was a member of the Henry Ford Peace Plan Commission (1915–1916).[1]

He was a signatory member of the

third party, despite sympathetic activists from the labor movement in 1920. The "Forty-Eighters") then became constituents in the Conference for Progressive Political Action in 1922, a movement culminating in the independent candidacy of Robert LaFollete for President of the United States
in 1924.

He may have been a communist, as some have stated. Diana Trilling wrote in her memoir The Beginning of the Journey (1993) that Huebsch refused to ever republish her husband

Popular Front group organized by the Communist Party in 1935 and disbanded in 1943. (His relative Edward Huebsch was also a member.[20]
)

He was a long-time member of

P.E.N. and served on numerous boards there.[1]

He began serving as a board member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) upon its founding by Roger Nash Baldwin and served as its treasurer from 1926 until his death in 1964.[1] (The ACLU supported Free Speech in the U.S., and so would have supported Huebsch's earlier publications of books by Lawrence, Joyce, and Anderson amidst controversial Free Speech issues of the time.)[1]

He represented the book industry on a U.S. National Committee for

Unesco in 1949.[1]

He helped establish the National Association of Book Publishers.[1]

Personal and death

In 1920, Huebsch married Alfhild Lamm.[1]

Huebsch had a close relationship with James Joyce, documented in correspondence.[1][21]

He died in London on August 7, 1964.[1]

Awards

  • 1964 -
    Irita Van Doren Award (first ever)[1]

Legacy

Huebsch's papers are archived at the Library of Congress, with documentation completed in 2013. It contains correspondence with an extraordinary range of writers and intellectuals.[1]

R.K. Narayan of India and Patrick White of Australia. With Pascal Covici in 1943, he developed the "Viking Portable Library" and served as its general editor (75 titles of comprehensive anthologies of works by an established author, period, or subject). He also served as treasurer of the American P.E.N. Center. During WWII, he served on the Council on Books in Wartime and the Armed Services Editions.[22]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q "B. W. Huebsch Papers" (PDF). Library of Congress. 2013. Retrieved 22 September 2016.
  2. ^ "The Late Sam Franko". New York Times. 23 May 1937. p. 6.
  3. ^ Stefan and Lotte Zweig's South American Letters Bloomsbury Press, New York 2010 p 198
  4. ISBN 978-1-4067-5883-2
    .
  5. ^ "Dubliners". Library of Congress. Retrieved 22 September 2016.
  6. ^ "A portrait of the artist as a young man". Library of Congress. Retrieved 22 September 2016.
  7. ISBN 978-0-292-74331-1
    .
  8. ISBN 978-90-279-1848-2
    .
  9. ^ "James Joyce". Peter Harrington (London). Retrieved 22 September 2016.
  10. ^ Neilson, Francis (1946). "The Story of 'The Freeman'". The American Journal of Economics and Sociology. 6 (1): 3–53.
  11. ^ Presley, Sharon (1981). "Suzanne La Follette: The Freewoman", Libertarian Review (Cato Institute).
  12. ISBN 978-1-85109-628-2
    .
  13. ^ "Translations". Whittaker Chambers. Retrieved 22 September 2016.
  14. ^ Azuélos, Daniel (2006). Lion Feuchtwanger et les exilés de langue allemande en France de 1933 à 1941. Peter Lang International Academic Publishers. p. 299.
  15. ^ "The Committee of Forty-Eight". 1919. Retrieved 22 September 2016.
  16. ^ Triling, Diana (1993). The Beginning of the Journey: The Marriage of Diana and Lionel Trilling. Harcourt Brace. pp. 388–390.
    ISBN 9780151116850
    . Retrieved 22 September 2016.
  17. ^ Tanenhaus, Sam (1997). Whittaker Chambers: A Biography. Random House. pp. 342, 578 (fn12).
    ISBN 9780375751455
    . Retrieved 22 September 2016.
  18. ^ Kramer, Hilton (1999). The Twilight of the Intellectuals: Culture and Politics in the Era of the Cold War. I.R. Dee. pp. 28.
    ISBN 9781566632225
    . Retrieved 22 September 2016.
  19. ^
    ISBN 9781469608679
    . Retrieved 22 September 2016.
  20. ^ a b Folsom, Franklin (1994). Days of Anger, Days of Hope: A Memoir of the League of American Writers, 1937-1942. University Press of Colorado. p. 265.
    ISBN 9780870813320
    . Retrieved 28 April 2020.
  21. ^ Beja, Morris (1986). James Joyce: The Centennial Symposium. University of Illinois Press. p. xiv.
    ISBN 9780252012914
    .
  22. ^ "Marshall A. Best, 81, Editor at Viking Books". New York Times. 16 March 1982. Retrieved 22 September 2016.

Further reading

External links

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