Stet: An Editor’s Life, by Diana Athill

A memoir of professional life, Stet provides a fascinating insight into the British publishing industry from immediately after WWII to the 1980s. Athill worked with many prominent 20th century authors, including Phillip Roth, Jean Rhys, John Updike and VS Naipaul, as an editor and as a director of independent publishing house Andre Deutsch Ltd. She touches lightly on the times and on personal issues, but concentrates on the working environment and associated personalities, focusing in particular on half a dozen authors she knew particularly well. Her pen portraits of these writers – some very well known, others not so much – are funny and insightful. The book is marred by the occasional grammatical error which seems very odd in an editor, but everyone makes mistakes and perhaps her own editor was too intimidated to make corrections! She saw enormous changes in the publishing industry and at the time this memoir was published, 2000, was still optimistic about its future despite a decline in editorial standards. She is still going strong and will turn 100 in 2017. It would be interesting to read her thoughts on developments in digital publishing and its impact on the industry.