Background
Huebsch was born in New York City in 1876, the son of Adolph Huebsch, a rabbi, and Julia Links. His father died when he was eight.
(Excerpt from Busman's Holiday: What, Exactly, Do Publishe...)
Excerpt from Busman's Holiday: What, Exactly, Do Publishers Do? People who know how to read and are curious about the facts of life in the book world often ask What, exactly, do publishers do? (the word exactly is redundant but people talk that way.) And when the answer trickles out, they are bored, for what they hear is the commonplace of all business, and What they hoped for was something romantic, revealing and daring. Bookish people seek the romantic because their real interest lies not in what publishers do, but in the mystery of authorship, in the personality of writers; and properly so; for nothing better can be said of a book than that the writer shines through his pages and makes people want to know him; to them he is an extension of his work. Readers sometimes surround publishers with an aura that derives from their association with authors, hence the well known and well-wom remark, generally uttered with a sigh of longing, You must meet such interesting people! It is true. Nobody is more interesting to publishers than authors, and not because of their love of authors, but because without authors there would be no books, hence no publishers or booksellers, hence no book readers. Having conceded that authors are the sine qua non of our whole structure, it may be admitted, privately, that all authors are not the most interesting people whom publishers meet. Indeed, it is uncommon to meet successful authors who are as interesting as their books. It is, perhaps, that they put all the best of themselves into their books, and we should be content that it is so. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
https://www.amazon.com/Busmans-Holiday-Exactly-Publishers-Classic/dp/1528337778?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1528337778
Huebsch was born in New York City in 1876, the son of Adolph Huebsch, a rabbi, and Julia Links. His father died when he was eight.
Much of Huebsch's education came from tutoring by his uncle Samuel. His interest in music began early; in the 1890's he studied the violin with Sam Franko (who secured for him a position for the 1898-1899 season as a music critic with the Sun). At ten years old Huebsch began to prepare himself for a business career by attending the Packard School of Business.
In June 1890 he became an apprentice lithographer with Joseph Frank and Sons, where he remained for three and a half years.
After several months he took a job with the New York Engraving and Printing Company. By this time his older brother Daniel was running a small printing firm with their uncle Samuel. During the late 1890's D. A. Huebsch and Company developed as its specialty the production of engagement books and diaries, advertising and distributing them nationally. After joining the firm, Huebsch became particularly involved in the promotional side of the business. A turning point came in 1900, when Edward Howard Griggs asked the Huebsch firm to distribute as well as print his book The New Humanism, for which he had not been able to find a publisher. Huebsch agreed, as he later recalled, "without the slightest knowledge of what publishing implied. " Griggs was apparently pleased with the result, for over the next several years Huebsch brought out more of his work. In this way Huebsch gradually became a book publisher.
By then his uncle was no longer with the firm; and when his brother left to pursue doctoral studies, Huebsch sold the printing equipment and then announced on Apr. 15, 1901, the change in the firm name to B. W. Huebsch. He continued for a few years as a contracting printer and marketed the yearbooks for two decades. But by late 1905 he was publishing books by authors other than Griggs, and in 1906 he attracted attention at the American Booksellers Association convention by distributing copies of one of his publications of that year, Gelett Burgess' Are You a Bromide? , in a special jacket by Burgess that satirized dust-jacket advertising and first used the word "blurb" to describe it.
The direction Huebsch's firm would take became evident early. By World War I it had published Maxim Gorky, Gerhart Hauptmann, Hermann Sudermann, and August Strindberg; poetry by James Oppenheim, Horace Traubel, and William Ellery Leonard; and discussions of social questions by John Spargo, Ellen Key, André Tridon, and H. G. Wells. The firm became known for translations of European works, books on socialism, psychoanalysis, and little theater, and literature by the kind of new and experimental writers whom the more established publishers hesitated to publish. Even as the firm grew, it continued to bear the stamp of Huebsch's personality: he published what he personally liked, and he had a hand in every aspect of the business, writing some of the advertising and deciding on the physical appearance of the books. (His abilities as a book designer recall his early aptitude for art and the course he took at the Cooper Union Art School. )
The distinction of the firm's output over the next decade is indicated by the names of some of its authors: Van Wyck Brooks, George Jean Nathan, James Joyce (four books, one preceding its English publication), D. H. Lawrence, Thorstein Veblen, Sherwood Anderson, and Randolph Bourne. From March 1920 to March 1924 Huebsch also published the Freeman, a weekly journal of "radical" political and literary opinion financed by Helen Swift Neilson and maintained on a high level throughout its brief but illustrious life.
By 1925 Huebsch's device of the seven-branched candlestick had appeared on some 400 books and had come to stand for an exceptional publishing achievement. In that year the Huebsch imprint came to an end, and Huebsch's impact on American publishing from then on was exercised through the Viking Press. Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheimer, founders of the Viking Press, had not yet issued a book when, on August 1, 1925, they acquired the Huebsch firm. The merger was mutually advantageous, for it improved Huebsch's financial position and provided Viking with an impressive backlist. Huebsch became vice-president of Viking and headed the editorial department. Marshall A. Best, who had joined Huebsch shortly before the merger, also played an important role in the new firm.
Although Huebsch lost a few writers over the years who felt that he had not adequately promoted their work, for the most part his authors were extraordinarily loyal. James Joyce, for instance, inserted a clause in his 1931 Viking contract allowing him to follow Huebsch, should Huebsch leave the firm. The quality of the Viking lists over four decades was strongly influenced by the personal attachments that Huebsch inspired. In addition to the authors who went with him to Viking, he brought in many others (among them Harold Laski and Stefan Zweig) through his wide acquaintance and his regular trips to Europe.
He was active until his death in London while on a business trip. From his early days he wrote and spoke frequently on the need for greater cooperation among all concerned with book distribution. He championed the idea of a national book center, with a permanent cooperative exhibition displaying books from all publishers, and he advocated courses of study for booksellers. It was at a meeting of publishers in 1919 that he first advanced the plan that led to the formation of the National Association of Book Publishers. Among other activities, he was a member of Henry Ford's Peace Expedition in 1915-1916 (editing a daily paper aboard ship), a member of the original committee (1920) of the American Civil Liberties Union (he remained treasurer for over thirty years), and the representative of the book industry on the United States National Committee for UNESCO (1949 - 1950).
He regarded publishing as a way of life, and his idealistic approach was reflected in a 1936 speech in which he described the publisher's function as "comparable in dignity with that of the ideal teacher. "
Huebsch was one of the great elder statesmen of American publishing. In addition to his record as a publisher and the breadth and humanity of his interests, he worked unselfishly on behalf of the book world and the cause of freedom of expression. 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.
(Excerpt from Busman's Holiday: What, Exactly, Do Publishe...)
book
Quotations: There is no business, which demands more constant adherence to a high standard than that of publishing books.
His kindness, generosity, and fair-mindedness were proverbial.
On September 14, 1920, Huebsch married Alfhild Lamm; they had two sons.
