Publishing

Jay Landesman was one of the most original talents in British publishing. The range of his subjects, the unconventional promotional drive behind them, have amused and impressed publishers, the trade and public alike. He has created a sense that publishing has room for personal flair - and can still be fun. Who will ever forget Landesman promoting The Good Dog's Cookbook at Frankfurt in a chef's cap and apron leading a well-fed Pyrenean dog down the sedate aisles of Hall 5.

His republication of the classic novel By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept brought Elizabeth Smart back to prominence and to writing again.

Many of the books in his early days looked like the literary indulgences of a 'gentleman publisher' but they appealed to a much wider audience than expected. The first novel on the Punk phenomena, written by a 14-year old closet Punk, complete with safety pin through the cover, to the monumental bibliography of the erotica collection in the British Library, The Private Case, indicate the perversity and diversity of his publishing activities.

A former publisher and editor in America, Landesman has a talent for fitting the right subject to the right author. As editor of Neurotica, America's first magazine that analysed popular culture, he encouraged the early works of Marshall McLuhan, G. Legman, Anatole Broyard, John Clellon Holmes, Kenneth Patchen, Henri Michaux, Jack Kerouac, Allan Ginsberg, Lawrence Durrell, Larry Rivers and Leonard Bernstein.

He extended his operation to include the packaging of non-fiction titles, titles that other publishers have either neglected or never dreamed they could exploit. It was in the area of ideas that Landesman excelled. He was in touch with the times and knew what areas needed to be filled.

Autobiography

As well as publishing other people's books, Jay has found time to write two volumes of autobiography: