There are no quills so sharp as those duelling for a legacy. Author Philip Hensher was writing about Hermione Lee’s new biography of Penelope Fitzgerald for the Guardian when he noted how her original publisher, Duckworth, was “controlled by the beady-braying-claret-and-malice pair of Colin and Anna Haycraft.”
Duckworth’s star writer was perpetual Booker bridesmaid Dame Beryl Bainbridge, with whom Colin was having an affair.
One commentator suggested that Hensher had “a personal grudge” against the Haycrafts, to which Hensher replied: “Colin Haycraft was famous for describing the women’s fiction he published as ‘a branch of gynaecology’”.
Then Stoddard Martin, a publisher and friend of the Haycrafts, chipped in to say it may have been true that Colin brayed and was fond of claret but that Hensher had done them a disservice.
Hensher huffed once more, saying both Bainbridge and Fitzgerald had already taken Colin off the pedestal. One senses more ink will flow before this argument is over.
