Linen Hall Library

Colin Smythe: Anglo-Irish One-Man Literary BandAuthor(s): Trevor WestSource: The Linen Hall Review, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Spring, 1987), pp. 4-5Published by: Linen Hall LibraryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20533872 .

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COLIN SMYTHE COLIN

SMYTHE

Anglo-Irish One-Man Literary Band COLIN

SMYTHE

Ireland's publishing explosion in the past decade has benefitted

poets, patriots, philosophers, read

ers, writers and historians (both local and global) and, of course, the booksellers, but one important name which does not always appear on Irish publishing lists is that of Colin Smythe. And why should it? ? for Smythe is the

quintessential upper-middle class Englishman, who, apart from his student davs in Dublin. has lived all his life in England and publishes from his stylish home in Buckinghamshire. In fact, to

categorise Smythe as an English publisher would be

quite wrong, for, since the earliest appearance of his stork-like imprint, he has performed a service to the

world of Irish letters without parallel since the

heady days of Maunsell and Roberts. His steps first strayed from the narrow path of

Anglo-Saxon rectitude as an undergraduate at

Trinity College, in the post-Behan Dublin of the

early sixties which had neither lost its Bohemian flavour nor put up its prices. There he came under the spell of that brilliant but enigmatic teacher, Alec

Reid, besides absorbing the more conventional wisdom of R.B.D. French and Fitzroy Pyle. Never

in any doubt as to the direction of his future career, after two further postgraduate years at Trinity working on a bibliography of Lady Gregory, he entered publishing with the support of his family and a capital of ?5,000.

His first publication was a text for autistic

children, but his interest in

Lady Gregory led to an invitation from Tom Henn,

doyen of Yeats and Sligo, to lecture to the Sligo Yeats

School in 1968. There, a suggestion by another well known Sligo impresario, Les Conner, that his lecture be published led to his first professional venture into the Anglo-Irish literary field. Since

then, twenty further Lady Gregory titles have

appeared under Smythe's imprint and now no sensible scholar would dream of working on Lady

Gregory without at first consulting Colin Smythe. Smythe met Deny Jeffares in 1970. In retrospect

it seems inevitable that they should work in partner ship. Jeff ares recognised Smythe as a knowledge

able, independent publisher (without an invisible accountant

standing permanently behind his

back), and Jeffares, with his

global perspective of Anglo-Irish scholarship, knew of the

expanding interest in the subject equalled only by a dearth of suitable texts. Basic material

was out of print or unavailable, commentaries were out of date or non-existent. Jeffares and Smvthe. inined later bv Ann

Saddlemeyer, banded together to fill the gap. How well they have succeeded everyone with an

interest in Anglo-Irish literature knows. Besides his publication of the best known figures

? Yeats,

Joyce, Beckett, Swift, Synge, Shaw and O'Casey ?

the books issued by Smythe on Lady Gregory, AE and George Moore have led to a reappraisal of their

place in the Irish literary canon. Smythes other titles form an impressive list covering writers such as Carleton, Colum, MacLiamm?ir, Dunsany, O'Donnell and Kate O'Brien, besides selected plays of Johnston, Robinson, Carroll, Hyde, Ervine, Fitz

maurice, Leonard, Murray, MacDonagh, Martyn, Mayne, MacNamara, Molloy, Shiels, Keane, Boyle and Boucicault.

Smythe is an academic publisher. His books are

splendidly produced with lavish illustrations and he encourages his authors to include the full

apparatus of scholarship ?

notes, bibliography, chronology and index. Further he knows his

market sufficiently well to publish books of

importance to the literary world but with potential sales of less than a thousand copies. This mar ket is ignored by the

conglomerates. The margin between success and failure is a thin one. Pricing is all important. Typesetting, printing and binding are contracted

out, usually to small independent firms, and

Smythe contributes to the control of his over-heads by runtiing a one-man show ? even to the extent of

typing all his letters and by doing without a

secretary. This is a remarkable operation, but one which

imposes a considerable strain even upon someone as well-organized and urbane as Colin Smythe.

TREVOR WEST I gives a brief I

assessment of one I man's contribution I

to the world of I Anglo-Irish I publications I

...no sensible scholar would dream of

working on Lady Gregory without at first consulting Colin Smythe...

page four

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His imprint is now of such importance in literary terms that anything which might disrupt the flow of his books would be a disaster for academia. In a one

man band the danger of over-dependence on the leader of the orchestra is only too evident. How a

single person can deal with all aspects of the pub lishing business, managing to turn out some twenty

new titles annually remains a mystery. In fact not all aspects of the business are adequately covered, for, in terms of publicity and

sales, Smythe's work as a

creative publisher deserves a better reward.

Indeed, there are obstacles to be overcome. For one thing, the English literary establishment takes an ambivalent view of Irish material. Shaw,

regarded as an English writer, gets the respect he merits. Yeats is usually taken seriously as an Eng

lish poet but sometimes ignored as Irish, while Lady Gregory is treated simply as an Irish writer and so

completely overlooked. This, as might be expected, is reflected in the reviews and exemplified by the

bleak statistic that but one of Smythe's books has been reviewed in the pages of The Times during the

past five years. He regularly receives reviews from The Scotsman and The Yorkshire Post, less regul arly from The Guardian and, by the rest of the

quality UK newspapers is more or less totally ignored.

Some, but not all, of this can be ascribed to

prejudice. Reviews rarely appear by chance. Potent ial reviewers need to be encouraged, literary editors

have to be badgered and Smythe is just not in a

position to devote enough time to what, for him, is a

trying task. On the sales side, closer contact needs to be kept with wholesalers and retailers. Book

sellers, like literary editors, have to be badgered. Smythe regularly co-publishes with US publishers such as Catholic University Press in Washington or

Barnes and Noble in New York, but American interest in Irish cultural affairs is burgeoning and

the potential for greater sales in America, and other

parts of the world, remains

untapped. The remedy is clear.

Smythe needs another able

body with a similar attachment to Anglo-Irish liter

ature, with an interest in publishing, and with a

head for business, to learn the trade, shoulder some

of the immense burden, and beef up his operation in terms of PR and marketing. In the present state of

play, an extra hand, with the requisite background and with drive and enthusiasm, would soon pay his

(or her) way besides offering Smythe his first

opportunity to take a decent holiday for twenty years.

All this, needless to say, presupposes the exis tence of an Anglo-Irish literature already abolished

(in a series of pamphlets) by Field Day. Do we hear Deanes distant thundering? Has Heaney sent his latest Harvard-sharped epistle to the New York

Review of Books to settle the question? The dispute must be left to the disputants. All that we are hereby permitted to conclude is the existence of an Anglo Irish publisher, alive and thriving, at Gerrards Cross in Buckinghamshire. Floreat Colin Smythe!

...Smythe's work as a creative

publisher deserves a better reward...

feoOKS ON ULSTER'S HISTORY....FROM HMSCJ HISTORIC MONUMENTS OF NORTHERN IRELAND A bright and interesting illustrated guide to Northern Ireland's

ancient monuments, describing 154 sites in state care and

listing over 250 other monuments. Each entry is identified on

a fold-out map. ISBN 0 337 08180 8 180 pages Paperback ?3.50

THE INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY OF NORTHERN IRELAND Comprehensive and fully illustrated, this handsome book covers all aspects of the Industrial Revolution in Ulster, with

detailed notes on conservation and preservation. ISBN 0 337 08154 9 616 pages Hardback ?55.00

EXCAVATIONS AT MOUNT SANDEL 1973-77 COUNTY LONDONDERRY

Flints discovered beside the River Bann in 1972 led to the excavation of the earliest settlement site yet discovered in

Ireland, radiocarbon dated to between 7000 and 6500 BC. An

important report in understanding Mount Sandel, a key site in

the Irish Mesolithic. ISBN 0 337 08194 8

^?220 pages Paperback ?13.50 ^ ^

Also of interest:

FOR THE PEOPLE'S CAUSE An edited collection from the works of John Murdoch, the

catalyst who introduced the philosophy of the Irish Land League to Inverness. He helped to initiate a protest movement

which led to the passing of the Crofters Act in 1886, providing security of tenure to the Scottish Highlands' oppressed and

exploited crofters. ISBN 0 11 290344 4 204 pages Hardback ?13.00

"All of these books ? and many more ? are available from

HMSO Bookshop, 80 Chichester Street, Belfast BT1 4JY Tel 0232-238451 Open 8.45 to 5.00, Monday to Friday.

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