Thomas Michael Maschler was a British publisher and writer.
20 Facts About Tom Maschler
1.
2.
Tom Maschler was noted for instituting the Booker Prize for British, Irish and Commonwealth literature in 1969.
3.
Tom Maschler was involved in publishing the works of many notable authors, including Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Heller, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, John Lennon, Ian McEwan, Bruce Chatwin and Salman Rushdie.
4.
Tom Maschler was born in Berlin, Germany, to Austrian Jewish parents, Rita and Kurt Leo Tom Maschler on 16 August 1933.
5.
Tom Maschler was five years old when his family fled to the UK from Vienna after the Nazi annexation of Austria.
6.
Tom Maschler went on to spend the next three years travelling across the US, working in a tuna cannery, and assorted construction jobs, while writing for the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times.
7.
Tom Maschler returned home and worked as a tour guide, and did national service as a part of the Russian Corps of the Royal Air Force.
8.
Tom Maschler went on to head Jonathan Cape, after the death of its founder.
9.
Tom Maschler discovered and published many writers, including Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ian McEwan and Bruce Chatwin.
10.
Tom Maschler published two books, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works, based on John Lennon's doodles.
11.
Tom Maschler was one of the key figures responsible for creating the Booker Prize in 1969.
12.
Tom Maschler had been losing money for a few years prior, necessitating the deal.
13.
Tom Maschler was diagnosed with manic depression shortly after the deal went through.
14.
Tom Maschler was sometimes criticised for his forceful approach to publishing, with a charge that while he was good at identifying commercial best sellers, he had "little interest in books for their own sake".
15.
Tom Maschler was considered a galvanising force and criticised for being inhospitable to some of his authors.
16.
Tom Maschler is noted to have played a key role in the career downturn of novelist Barbara Pym.
17.
In 1963, after joining Cape, Tom Maschler rejected Pym's seventh novel, An Unsuitable Attachment, on the advice of two readers at the firm.
18.
In 1970, Tom Maschler married his first wife Fay Coventry, who went on to be a restaurant critic for the Evening Standard, and they had three children.
19.
Tom Maschler lived and travelled between his houses in London, France and Mexico.
20.
Tom Maschler died at the age of 87 on 15 October 2020, in a hospital near his home in Luberon, south-eastern France.