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Article: Publisher To the Stars
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- July 2, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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FIREBRAND
The Life of Horace Liveright
By Tom Dardis
Random House. 394 pp. $27.50
IT'S DIFFICULT to imagine that the name of Horace Liveright rings
even the faintest of bells for anyone except graduate students in
American literature and their professors. During the 1920s he was one
of the most celebrated figures in American book publishing, and his
influence upon the country's literature remains notable even today,
but his was the peculiar fate of virtually all publishers: to
exercise control if not dominance over his authors in life but to
fade in memory after death even as those same authors' reputations
increase.
Thus Liveright will never be more than a footnote to literary
history, but ...