Victor Gollancz

Sir Victor Gollancz (9 April 1893 – 8 February 1967) was a British publisher and humanitarian.

Gollancz was often noted as a supporter of left-wing causes. His loyalties shifted between Liberalism and Communism, but he defined himself as a Christian Socialist and Internationalist. Although he gained high credibility by forecasting the Nazi extermination of Jews, he campaigned for friendship with both Germany and Soviet Russia. He used his publishing house chiefly to promote pacifist and socialist non-fiction, and also launched the Left Book Club.

In the postwar era, he focused his attention on Germany and became noted for his promotion of friendship and reconciliation based on his internationalism and his ethic of brotherly love. He founded the organisation Save Europe Now (SEN) in 1945 to campaign for support of the Germans, and drew attention to the suffering of German civilians, especially children, and atrocities committed against German civilians. He received an honorary doctorate at the University of Frankfurt in 1949, the Großes Bundesverdienstkreuz of Germany in 1953 and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 1960, and several streets in Germany, including the Gollanczstraße in West Berlin, and a school, the Victor Gollancz Elementary School, were named in his honour. Since 2000, the Society for Threatened Peoples has awarded the Victor Gollancz Prize. Gollancz once said: "I hate everything that is pro and anti (different peoples). I am only one thing: I am pro-humanity."

Victor Gollancz Ltd

Victor Gollancz Ltd was a major British book publishing house of the twentieth century. It was founded in 1927 by Victor Gollancz (1893–1967) and specialised in the publication of high quality literature, nonfiction and popular fiction, including science fiction. Upon Gollancz's death in 1967, ownership passed to his daughter, Livia, who sold it to Houghton Mifflin in 1989. Three years later, in October 1992, Houghton Mifflin sold Gollancz to the publishing house Cassell & Co. Cassell and Orion Publishing Group were acquired by Hachette in 1996, and in December 1998 the merged Orion/Cassell group turned Gollancz into its science fiction/fantasy imprint.

Origins as a political house

Gollancz was left-inclined in politics and a supporter of socialist movements. This is reflected in some of the books he published. Victor Gollancz commissioned George Orwell to write about the urban working class in the North of England; the result was The Road to Wigan Pier. His break with Orwell came when he declined to publish Orwell's account of the Spanish Civil War, Homage to Catalonia, the pair having drifted apart on political grounds. He did publish The Red Army Moves by Geoffrey Cox on the Winter War, which was critical of the Soviet attack on Finland, but also foresaw that the Red Army would defeat the Germans. He also published works by German exiles, such as Hilde Meisel.