The
latest company to be worried
about Irving is Amazon.co.uk,
which has removed from sale
Telling Lies About Hitler,
Richard J Evans's account of
Irving's libel action against
Deborah Lipstadt. |
Saturday,
March 8, 2003 The
Bookseller Nicholas
Clee on the latest news from the
publishing industry David
Irving comments: OF COURSE I have had no
contact with Amazon whatever.
This is just another
Guardian lie. I have no
objection whatever to a publisher
publishing, and a bookseller
selling, books that propagate the
truth; if a book contains
deliberate, malicious and
defamatory lies however, then
both author and bookseller must
continue to risk the
consequences. Since
Deborah Lipstadt's lies
cost her publisher Penguin around
£3 million in unrecoverable
legal and other expenses, part of
them ironically the bribes paid
to Professor Richard "Skunky"
Evans for his testimony in
the trial, their reluctance to
publish future works by her and
other authors is
understandable. More serious
for Evans is not the prospect of
a civil action for libel, but a
criminal action for perjury,
which a legal adviser has
recommended to me press.
Related
file:
How
Macmillan Ltd came under pressure
to destroy Mr Irving's books
(1992)
How
St Martin's Press came under
pressure to cancel Mr Irving's
"Goebbels" contract
(1996)
Index
on Richard "Skunky" Evans and his
book | THE last time David Irving brought
a libel action to trial, he left court
with his reputation in ruins. Despite that
result, the discredited historian
continues to exert influence on the book
industry. The
latest company to be worried about him is
Amazon.co.uk, which has removed from sale
Telling Lies About Hitler (Verso),
Richard J Evans's account of
Irving's libel action against Penguin
Books and Deborah Lipstadt. Professor
Evans was the chief defence witness at the
trial, and he uncovered the telling
material that led to the branding of
Irving as someone who "persistently and
deliberately misrepresented and
manipulated historical evidence".Telling Lies About Hitler has a
complicated history, recounted in this
column before. Amazon appears to have sold
it until January. The problem is that
booksellers may be liable for prosecution
if they are told that a book is
potentially defamatory - and Irving has
given Amazon that message. The company
says: "We will not list Telling Lies
About Hitler or any other book over the
objections that the book contains
defamatory content, at least not
without a commitment by the publisher
to defend us in any legal action
brought against us under UK law." Verso says that it does not feel
inclined to indemnify a retailer that has
already removed the book from sale. Amazon
says that the law as it stands has "a
chilling effect on free speech".
AMAZON continues to sell David Irving's
books. It draws the line, though, at
Mein Kampf. Those are defensible
policies: one expects booksellers to
promote liberal dissemination, up to a
point. Publishers, too, should defend free
speech, as Penguin did when it supported
Deborah Lipstadt; but they also
have the right to select the material they
produce. This principle appears not to have been
grasped by Jonathan King, who wrote to me
following my story last week about Michael
Moore's praise of Penguin, publisher of
his (Moore's) book Stupid White Men. King
(prisoner FF8782), currently contesting
his conviction for sexual offences against
minors, offered Penguin an autobiography
entitled King and I, and received in
response "a terse statement that they were
not interested in anything I had to
offer". King concludes: "So much for
freedom of expression." A criminal record need not hinder a
writer's career: Lord Archer continues to
bring out books, and people convicted of
far worse crimes than perjury have found
publishing deals. Nevertheless, a
publisher may be excused for judging that
a King memoir would not be a viable
project. Turning down a book is not
censorship. The editor who told an author that she
hated the author and the author's books,
and the publisher who passed off an
author's work as her own, are among the
horror stories in the latest Society of
Authors survey of publishers. Since the
last survey six years ago, authors have
grown slightly more disenchanted, awarding
publishers lower marks in almost every
category. Marketing and publicity efforts were a
particular source of dissatisfaction;
authors also complained about the effect
on their books when new editors took
charge of them, and about late payments.
They were happier, though, with
publishers' production standards. Four
independent houses came in for the highest
praise: Constable & Robinson, Faber,
Robert Hale and John Murray. (The results
cover the period before Murray was bought
by Hodder Headline.) But some
conglomerates did well, too: the SoA's
members gave largely favourable reports on
Hodder Headline, Pan Macmillan, Penguin
and Random House. |