Obscenity, Who Really Cares? John Calder Keeps On Keeping On

John Calder is the retired owner of one of Britain’s most fiercely independent publishers, Calder Publishing. It’s telling that he decided to name the company after himself as his endearing willfulness made him one of the most litigated-against publishers of the mid-20th century. Calder relished controversy, publishing 90 per cent of Samuel Beckett’s output as well as William Burroughs in the UK when no one else would touch him. He also published the work of rabble-rousing foreigners such as Goethe, Zola and Russian heavyweights Chekhov, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky when their ideas could still get whole nations in a twist. That’s before you get to the obscenity trials for publishing Hubert Selby Jr.’s

, banned works by Henry Miller and Burroughs, and the 36 individual libel claims after publishing

by Eddie Milne in 1976, which exposed Labour party corruption.

After 58 years in publishing, Calder sold his list and his bookshop to another independent imprint called One World last year. He continues to work in the Calder Bookshop on The Cut, close to London’s Waterloo station, where he has for decades, and he feverishly believes in new, challenging and esoteric fiction at an age when most people worry about how much their back’s going to hurt this week.

Vice: After 58 years you have called it a day. What finally made you sell up?

John Calder:

You still seem busy now, even though you’re supposedly retired.

How did you end up studying economics at the University of Zurich, despite an obvious passion for books?

What was it over?

You sound like you were confident you’d have won.

Who was the first author who made you think that putting out books was what you had to do?

The Question

How did your relationship with Beckett start?

Waiting for Godot

Waiting for Godot

Weren’t Faber worried that his novels would breach obscenity laws?

Was Beckett anything like the popular image of him as a dry, old, lonely philosopher?

Godot

In 1961 you published Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller, Cain’s Book by Alexander Trocchi and Naked Lunch, The Soft Machine and The Ticket that Exploded by Burroughs, all of which really raised people’s heckles. Were you out to provoke or was it all just a happy coincidence?

Lady Chatterley

Was publishing things that people found controversial your sole aim?

Didn’t Trocchi actually work as a translator for you for a while? How did he get anything done?

The Long Book

He was on the panel with William Burroughs at a conference you held in 1960. Did they have a junkie hoedown?

What made you remark that you believe Burroughs to be an important writer but not a great one?

Naked Lunch

What do you believe makes a great author?

Do you think that that freedom is offering a negative return in terms of quality?

As you leave it behind after so long, how do you feel about the world of publishing today?