Kurt Enoch was a German-born publisher who co-founded Albatross Books in Germany and Penguin Books Inc and New American Library in the United States, bringing high-quality paperback fiction and non-fiction to the mass market in those countries.
21 Facts About Kurt Enoch
2.
Kurt Enoch was born in Hamburg, then part of the German Empire, on 22 November 1895.
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Kurt Enoch was the son of Otto Enoch, an entrepreneur and publisher, and his wife, Rosa.
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Kurt Enoch's parents were from a liberal Jewish background and encouraged their son to study literature and devote himself to his education.
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Kurt Enoch progressively came to realize that he was mainly interested in the profession of publishing rather than in printing.
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Kurt Enoch completed a doctorate at the University of Hamburg and took over the family business from his father, whose health was declining.
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Kurt Enoch strived for a national profile for the publishing business by seeking out important writers and talented new writers and adding foreign translations and books about other parts of the world to the catalogue.
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In 1932 Enoch joined the English translator John Holroyd-Reece and the German publisher Max Christian Wegner to found a publishing house with the name Albatross Books in Hamburg and launched a paperback book series named the Albatross Modern Continental Library.
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Kurt Enoch would act as the sole distributor for the series.
10.
Kurt Enoch arranged for the distribution of Albatross titles outside Germany to be handled through a newly founded firm that would be located in Paris and headed by himself.
11.
When war broke out in 1939, Kurt Enoch was briefly interned in France.
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Kurt Enoch noted that there was limited access to books outside the larger cities of the United States, a gap that the firm Pocket Books was attempting to fill with inexpensive "mass market" fiction paperbacks.
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Kurt Enoch believed there was an untapped opportunity to publish paperbacks of non-fiction, of more sophisticated fiction, and of the classics.
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Kurt Enoch suggested to the British publisher Allen Lane that Penguin Books should move from just having an American sales agency for its British publications to setting up as a publisher in the United States.
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Kurt Enoch brought his special skills to this line of books.
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Kurt Enoch demonstrated that the classics, from Shakespeare to '1984,' and Mickey Spillane, William Styron and James Bond, could all live comfortably on one publishing list.
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Kurt Enoch served on the American Book Publishers Council, the National Book Committee and the Franklin Book Program.
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Kurt Enoch wrote numerous articles on the "paperback revolution" and its importance in providing millions of ordinary citizens with access to quality books with tough and independent thinking at a modest and affordable price.
19.
In 1967 Kurt Enoch retired from the Times Mirror Book Division.
20.
Kurt Enoch died on 15 February 1982 while on holidays in Puerto Rico.
21.
Kurt Enoch married Margaret "Marga" M Heinemann in early 1937.