Secker and Warburg

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Secker & Warburg is a British publishing company formed in 1936 from a takeover of Martin Secker, which was in receivership, by Fredric Warburg and Roger Senhouse. It is therefore somewhat surprising that they were the first publishers of Mein Kampf in 1925. Perhaps equally surprising is that the firm became renowned for its political stance, being both anti-fascist and anti-communist, a position that put them at loggerheads with the ethos of many intellectuals of the time. When George Orwell parted company with Communist Party sympathizer Victor Gollancz over The Road to Wigan Pier, it was to Secker & Warburg that he took his next book Homage to Catalonia. Thereafter they were to publish all of Orwell's work, with author and Warburg becoming intimate friends. Secker & Warburg published other books by key figures of the anti-Stalinist left, such as CLR James[1], Rudolf Rocker and Boris Souvarine[2], as well as works by Lewis Mumford.

With its financial position devastated by paper shortages during and after the war, Secker & Warburg were forced to join the Heinemann group of publishers in 1951. During the 1950s and 1960s Secker & Warburg were to publish the works of, amongst others, Simone de Beauvoir, Collette, Alberto Moravia, Günter Grass, Angus Wilson, Melvyn Bragg and Julian Gloag, as well as the British Buddhist Lobsang Rampa.