Witness
Statement of Andrew
RosenheimI, ANDREW ROSENHEIM, of 27 Wrights
Lane, Kensington, London, W8 5TZ will
say as follows:
1. I am Managing Director of Penguin
Press, a publishing division of Penguin
Books Limited ("Penguin"). I have been
employed by Penguin since October 1997.
Before that, I was a Director of Oxford
University Press for over seven
years.
2. "Denying
the Holocaust" written by
Deborah Lipstadt ("the Book")
was first published in England and
Wales by Penguin on 2 March 1995 as a
paperback. Penguin's sister company,
Penguin USA Inc, published the Book in
the US. They physically printed 3,000
copies in the US for us which were then
shipped to Penguin's warehouse in
Harmondsworth for Penguin to sell in
the UK and also to export to Europe and
elsewhere. Penguin did not prepare a
separate UK edition itself, for the
contents were identical to the edition
published in the US, but the UK version
bore a Penguin UK imprint and had a
separate UK ISBN.
3. The decision to publish the Book
in England and Wales was made by
Peter Mayer, former Chief
Executive of Penguin. Penguin has a
long history of publishing books
containing serious argument that elicit
debate and, sometimes, controversy. It
was felt that the Book would be
regarded as a serious and important
contribution to the history of
historical interpretation and to the
growing field of Holocaust studies.
4. Net UK sales of the Book (i.e.
less returns) were 1,806 in 1995 but
thereafter our UK sales records show
that returns exceeded sales, by 132 in
1996, by 20 in 1997 and by 4 in
1998.
5. The Penguin edition had a short
sales life in the UK as it was agreed
almost immediately after publication to
import the Penguin US Plume edition of
the Book as part of a general policy to
import Plume titles from Penguin US.
The net UK sales figures for this
particular edition were 282 for 1995,
153 for 1996, 129 in 1997 and 95 in
1998.
