Martyn Goff

Martyn Goff (7 June 1923 – 25 March 2015)^[1] was a British literary administrator, author, and bookseller. He made a significant contribution to the organisation and popularity of the Booker Prize for many years, and was also involved in efforts to increase literacy and book ownership, particularly among children.

Background

Born in 1923, he grew up in Hampstead, London. His father, Jacob, was a Russian fur dealer who had emigrated to Britain and became a supplier to department stores. ^[2] After studying at Clifton College^[1] in Bristol, he won a place at Oxford University to study English but the intervention of World War Two meant he joined the RAF,^[1] as a Lancaster bomber wireless operator serving in the Middle East.^[3] While there, he edited a magazine that included book and music reviews, and ^[3] wrote a letter to the poet Siegfried Sassoon. The poet, while writing later to John Maynard Keynes, suggested that this letter was instrumental in the poet's going back to writing after a barren spell of two years.^[1] Goff was demobilised in 1946.^[3]

Career

Bookseller

In 1948, Goff opened his first bookshop, in St Leonard’s-on-Sea,East Sussex.^[1] after working unpaid for a period in a bookshop in Charing Cross, London, to gain experience as a bookseller. He later started two more bookshops on the English south coast,^[4] and relocated to Sussex in 1950, buying an existing bookshop business in Banstead. After he retired from the Trust in 1988, and returned to bookselling, and became the chairman a specialist seller of antiquarian works in Sackville Street, Piccadilly.^[3]

Promotion of Literacy

Goff was involved in a number of projects which encouraged people to read, buy, and own books, as he ‘wanted young people to feel that it was as exciting to spend money on a new book as to spend it on the latest music album or fashion trend.’.^[1]

His main platform was the National Book League (NBL), later renamed the Book Trust, of which he was the director from 1970-1988. In 1971, he launched a literary festival in London named the 'Bedford Square Book Bang' which had a large attendance, despite unhelpful weather.^[3] While at the Book Trust, Goff also started a tradition of presenting the Queen with a package of books at Balmoral every Summer - his intention being to make a public connection between books and a high-profile establishment figure.^[1]

The Booker Prize

He took over the administration of the Booker Prize (later the Man Booker) early in its life, in 1973.^[3] Under Goff’s tenure, the Prize became a vehicle for promoting literary reputations, and it became significantly more successful in one of its original aims of increasing book sales - an aim which, .^[1] While raising sales had been an objective of the Prize since its inception in 1969, in practice, before his arrival, had only been modestly achieved.^[3]

From 1970 to 2006, Goff was responsible for liaising with the media over their coverage of the prize and chose the five judges. Although he sat in on the discussions to decide on the winner, but is said not to have tried to influence the result.^[1] He attracted celebrity judges such as actress Joanna Lumley and celebrity chef Nigella Lawson alongside academics and novelists. Lumley said of her judging experience: "The so-called bitchy world of acting was a Brownies’ tea party compared with the piranha-infested waters of publishing".^[1] Goff courted the controversies that often beset the Booker, especially in its early years. John Sutherland, the literary academic, wrote in 2002 that "The current health of English fiction can be explained in two words: Martyn Goff".^[5] Sutherland, who chaired the judges in 2005, later remarked that Goff "would have entered his club, the Athenaeum, naked, with only a shortlisted hardback covering his private parts if he thought it would get publicity for the prize".^[3] His long and enthusiastic association with the Prize meant that he acquired the nickname 'Mr Booker'.

Author

As an author, Goff’s non-fiction subjects covered vinyl record-collecting,^[2] Victorian and Edwardian Surrey, and Brighton's Royal Pavilion.

He was also an author of nine novels. His first, The Plaster Fabric, appeared in 1957. It was one of four of his novels (the others being The Youngest Director, Indecent Assault and Tar and Cement)^[2] which dealt with gay themes.^[3] At the time, Homosexuality in Britain remained a criminal offence, and Goff’s publisher is reported to have said to him, "You know this book could land both of us in the Old Bailey. You’re not worried?" On hearing Goff say that he was not, the publisher responded by saying. "Good — then neither am I."

The book received a very positive review from John Betjeman,^[1] and it has been argued that the bok's reception helped move public opinion towards legal reform after The Wolfenden Report was published in 1959.^[3]

In 1999, he edited a collection of works to celebrate the Booker Prize’s 30th anniversary.^[6]

Other work

He was a reviewer of fiction for almost twenty years, for the The Daily Telegraph, then the Evening Standard. He was one of the first to see the merits of the novelThe Bone People, a novel by Keri Hulme, a New Zealand Maori, and the 1985 Booker winner.^[3] He was also a member of several Arts Council committees.^[1] He was a presenter on the British radio channel LBC for five years.^[7]

Personal life and honours

Goff is said to have acquired, and relished, a reputation as a dandy.^[1] He had three main interests: literature, music, and the arts, particularly picture collecting. He belonged to several clubs. His partner, Rubio Tapani Lindroos, a Finnish poet who moved to London in 1970, died in 2014.^[1][3]

Goff was appointed OBE in 1977 and CBE in 2005.^[1] In 2003, Oxford Brookes University awarded him an honorary doctorate.^[7]

References