The doubts of Victor Gollancz, publisher and Englishman.

I have to clear my shelves, and in particular, my bookshelves, and discard what I no longer want. When I was still a bookseller and was interested in the book trade I bought every book on publishing I came across, and I picked up Victor Gollancz two autobiographical ruminations, My Dear Timothy long-winded letters to his grandson, which I have never read. Victor Gollancz was highly respected in the circles I moved in for his liberal views, but in My Dear Timothy he dwells at great length on Orthodox Judaism. This clearly bothered him, and he tried to explain to his grandson, no longer Jewish, where he stood. He himself was the grandson of an eminent cantor and nephew of a great rabbinical authority. His father was a religious, man practising an orthodox religious life. For his father orthodox Jewish observance meant that you followed the rules and never asked the reasons why. If Shabbat came in at an inconvenient time you walked home from school instead of catching the bus. You fasted on fast days even if you had to atone for sins you could not possibly have committed. You ate certain foods and not others even if it meant turning down a dinner invitation by some great dignitaries. This made it hard for Victor to fit into British society, to fully enjoy his schooling at St Paul’s and at Oxford. These required compromises. He would compromise his religious beliefs, because some of them made no sense to him; by seeking rational explanations the compromise was easier. But when his pro-communist beliefs came under scrutiny he was reluctant to compromise. His firm published the early books of George Orwell, but wouldn't publish Animal Farm because that was deemed offensive to Soviet communist ideology. Turning Animal Farm and later Nineteen eighty-four down was not a smart publishing business decision. But living in England as a successful, highly regarded Englishman Victor Gollancz had to jettison his father's values and principles. He was a charming, esteemed businessman and publisher, a colourful prolific writer, but neither quite a Jew nor quite an Englishman.