Издательство Джонатана Кейпа: История и Наследие

English publishing firm (founded 1921)
the publisher

Jonathan Cape is a London publishing firm founded in 1921 by Herbert Jonathan Cape (1879–1960), who was head of the firm until his death. Cape and his business partner Wren Howard (1893–1968) set up the publishing house in 1921. They established a reputation for high quality design and production and a fine list of English language authors, fostered by the firm's editor and reader Edward Garnett. Cape's list of writers ranged from poets including Robert Frost and C. Day Lewis, to children's authors such as Roald Dahl, Hugh Lofting and Arthur Ransome, to James Bond novels by Ian Fleming, to heavyweight fiction by James Joyce and T. E. Lawrence. After Cape's death, the firm later merged successively with three other London publishing houses. In 1987 it was taken over by Random House. Its name continues as one of Random House's British imprints.

Herbert Jonathan Cape was born in London on 15 November 1879, the youngest of the seven children of Jonathan Cape, a clerk from Ireby in what is now Cumbria, and his wife Caroline, née Page. He received a basic schooling and in his early teens, he was taken on by Hatchards bookshop in Piccadilly as an errand boy. Four years later, in 1899, Cape joined the London office of the American publishers Harper and Brothers, where he worked, successively, as a clerk, general utility man and travelling salesman, first in the provinces and later in London. Cape returned to Duckworth in 1918. In 1920 he was appointed manager of the Medici Society, known mainly for publishing prints of paintings but with a small list of books. With just enough starting capital, the firm of Jonathan Cape began trading on 1 January 1921 at 11 Gower Street, Bloomsbury. Cape and Howard recruited Edward Garnett as their editor and reader. Garnett, described by The Times as "the prince of publisher's readers," remained with the firm until his death in 1937. Jonathan Cape Ltd became Lawrence's publishers, issuing Revolt in the Desert (1927), Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1935), and The Mint (1955).

Cape was three times married and three times widowed. In 1907 he married Edith Louisa Creak, with whom he had two daughters. Edith Cape died in 1919. In 1927 Cape married Olyve Vida James, with whom he had a son and a daughter; Olyve Cape died in 1931. In 1941 he married Kathleen Mary Webb, with whom he had a son; Kathleen Cape died in 1953.

From 1960, the publishing house was headed by Tom Maschler for more than three decades. As the 1960s progressed, the firm successfully courted and published authors who were representative of the age, including the Beatle John Lennon, and the former "angry young man" Kingsley Amis. Cape also signed up Len Deighton, whose series of spy novels was a gritty alternative to the far fetched adventures of James Bond. In the 1970s, Cape published popular authors in many genres, including the novelists J. G. Ballard and Salman Rushdie, and the children's writer Roald Dahl. One of their freelance cover artists was Bill Botten. A defensive merger with Chatto and Windus was carried out in 1969; and The Bodley Head and Virago Press were added to the group. In 1987 Cape was taken over and became an imprint of Random House. as of 2019, Jonathan Cape is an imprint of Vintage Publishing UK.