Ricky Lee Grove

  Harlin Quist (1930–2000) was an American theater producer turned book publisher who became one of the most innovative and controversial figures in 20th-century children’s literature. If you’ve ever encountered a mid-century children’s book that felt oddly surreal, darkly humorous, or deeply existential, there is a strong chance it came from his press. Before entering publishing, Quist was an off-Broadway actor and producer (even winning a few Obie Awards in the late 1950s). After brief editorial stints at Crowell-Collier and Dell, he struck out on his own in 1965, founding Harlin Quist Books with the explicit intent to reject the safe, sanitized world of traditional children’s stories. Quist famously loathed the overly simplistic, comforting nature of typical mid-century primers like Dick and Jane , believing they dealt a “death blow to the imagination.” Instead, he aimed to publish sophisticated, visually aggressive literature that respected a child’s capacity for complex thou...

Philip Roth’s  Writers from the Other Europe  was a Penguin paperback series he launched and served as general editor for, beginning in the mid-1970s and running until 1989. Its goal was to bring major Eastern European fiction to American readers, especially writers who were well known in their own countries but little known in the U.S. His interest in the series grew out of visits to Prague in 1972 and 1973. He was deeply moved by the plight of writers living under totalitarian regimes—authors who were often banned, imprisoned, or forced into menial labor while their work circulated only in samizdat (underground) form. Roth envisioned a series that would move beyond political curiosity and highlight these authors as literary masters rather than mere political dissidents. The series focused on the "Eastern Bloc," primarily featuring writers from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia. The books were known for their distinctive paperback covers, which often featured e...

  I came to  Wystan Hugh Auden  by way of Tolkien. I devoured the notes and bibliography section of Tolkien’s biography written by Humphrey Carpenter. Auden is mentioned as being an early supporter of Tolkien’s trilogy and wrote influential reviews of the first two books in the trilogy. So I searched for Auden in the bookstore where I was working and found his first collection of essays, reviews, and aphorisms,  The Dyer’s Hand  (1967) .  Many of the essays were revelations to me, ( Making, Knowing and Judging ) others I simply didn’t understand because I was too young. Auden’s essays led me to his poetry which I found challenging as well (I was 17 at the time), but I was also impressed. They captured my imagination in a way no other poet did and they inspired me to explore the words he used and research the subjects he wrote about. His writing enriched my life. Thus began a life-long interest in Auden. I’ve been reading his work for most of my life. I stil...