Interview with Michael Walmer, Publisher and Rescuer of Forgotten Books

Michael Walmer is both one of the most modest and one of the most ambitious of the growing number of small independent publishers specializing in reissuing the work of forgotten and under-appreciated authors. A one-man firm operating from a cottage in the Shetland Islands, Michael Walmer has not only built up an impressive catalog over the course of the last nine years but is branching out with a new series, Northus Shetland Classics, later this year.

He took some time recently to answer a few questions about his imprint and where it’s headed.

• What inspired you to start up your own publishing firm?

My inspirations are twofold: first, obviously, an enduring love of writing and of writers – the capacity of some individual humans to craft language in such a way that illumination and beauty comes. And also the fact that many writers have not been celebrated with the same relish that the acknowledged classic writer might garner, despite their having equal or greater skill, to my mind – that’s the ‘neglected’ part.
My second inspiration was the feeling that I could do it in a practical sense. I had served my time in publishing with a well-known literary publisher and, because of the small size of that house, had learnt much of the trade at first hand, from contracts to editing to design to sales. Also, the advent of print-on-demand technology meant that I didn’t have to be wealthy to publish.

 

 

• Where did your initial list of titles come from? Were these favorites you’ve wanted to see back in print?

The initial list established the idea of the republication of oeuvres, rather than solo titles. The tone of the list came from the desire to underline what brilliance there was in comic writing – six of the first ten were wits: Max Beerbohm, Ada Leverson, Ronald Firbank, Kylie Tennant, Stella Benson and Saki. And comedy was a tonic in a world that I found depressing – there was added value on that score. Anger at the state of the world and the release from that which comedy (specifically satire) gives, is the personal background.

Then there were four others who were ‘serious’ but interesting for a variety of reasons: George Sand because she was remembered now more as a romanticized celebrity than a writer; Mary Webb because she is consistently misunderstood; W. Clark Russell because sometimes a straightforward novel of events can be a huge pleasure; and the tenth ‘spot’ was given over to single works which I think deserve more attention – the first was M.R. James’ only novel, the weird The Five Jars.

These are ‘favourites’, but not the only ones – the list of potential inclusions is lengthy!

Now this remit has expanded into several additional series: a belles-lettres series of non-fiction, a poetry series, a series of classic translated fiction, a series of pre-Victorian classics, a series of great short works, and a series of modern classics. Most recently, I’ve teamed up with Robert Alan Jamieson on Northus Shetland Classics to reissue a series of key works from the literature of my new home, Shetland. The series is divided into four ‘streams’ using identifiers from the Shetland dialect: Yarns (fiction), Poyims (poetry), Myndins (memoir) and Alting (a forum for general non-fiction)

• What readers are you hoping to interest in your books? What’s been their responses so far?

Anyone with a hunger for the less traversed regions of literature, like myself, and yourself. That feeling that you will do best if you play to your passions enlivens that. It’s the same reasoning that keeps me from publishing something that I don’t respect just for the money.

Lots of great individual responses, in terms of readers and bloggers getting on board, taking up review copies and spreading the word. But I’m just about to start a new phase where I look to the trade more – the current experiment is going from being firm sale to being ‘sale or return’, so as to be an attractive proposition for more prospective buying by bookshops, and then developing a mailing list to let them know of new titles as they come. We’ll see how that goes – early days!

 

 

• What unexpected challenges have you run into?

All sorts of challenges, all the time. Challenges from within, where I don’t feel I’ve nailed it with a particular design or blurb. Also from without, where I thought I’d get good takeup on a particular effort and didn’t. And, of course, those things that always happen in the background of publishing, that I can’t comment on specifically – difficult estates, or irritating agents, or whatever! But then again, those times are always balanced by their opposites – brilliant responses, designs that really sing, and such.

• What books would you love to reissue but, for whatever reason, have been unable to?

Two thus far, and for the reasons above. I’d better not say too much more!

• What lessons have you learned in the process of getting your initial titles out?

That responses can always surprise, which is wonderful. Also, for some strange reason that I don’t quite understand, that the picture in my mind’s eye of any book I do always looks a lot worse than the real thing – somehow I imagine it less svelte, less balanced, less OK than it really is. Hmmmm, that seems like a problem for a psychoanalyst! Not to rely on / assume too much – just keep flexible and patient.

 

 

• Why do you think there’s an increased appetite now for rediscovering little-known books from the past?

Culturally, I think that’s been born of the digital revolution. Prior, access to these titles was extraordinarily restricted – literally visiting libraries of preservation like the British Library, the Bodleian or the Library of Congress was the only way of seeing them, copies were so rare. Or finding them through old ‘analogue’ second-hand book-search methods, like those little slips of paper from dealers with offers, sent all around the world in response to requests in trade journals! Now digitisation has meant that these titles which are out of copyright can be made available (admittedly often pretty poor quality photo-reproductions) to anyone who has online capacity. The further reaches of literature then become open to examination, rather than an effectively closed territory.

This has been the baseplate for interest to grow into other realms: material which is still in copyright is not usually available this way, but interest is peaking, exemplified by your blog, among some notable others, like Furrowed Middlebrow, Bear Alley and the like. Then it takes dedicated people to start making them available in pleasant editions to give them a happier new life – there are a growing group of us doing that, which I think is splendid. When I started, in 2012, there were only House of Stratus and Valancourt really, in the ‘curated’ (non-generic) print-on-demand field, anyway. Now there are loads of us.

You can browse the complete Michael Walmer catalogue and order online at www.michaelwalmer.com.