Anthony Blond

Anthony Bernard Blond (20 March 1928 in Sale, Cheshire — February 27 2008) was a British publisher and author.

Blond was the elder son of Major Neville Blond CMG, OBE, who was a cousin of Harold Laski. His mother was from a Manchester Sephardic Jewish family; they divorced when Blond was a child. He was educated at Eton, where he was bullied, and after leaving, briefly served his National Service in the Army, but his pacifism led to him registering as a conscientious objector. Having gained a History exhibition (scholarship) to New College, Oxford, he lost it by indulging too much in the distractions of an undergraduate life.

After Oxford, he briefly worked for a literary agent, but set up his own firm in 1952, Anthony Blond (London) Ltd, in partnership with the future novelist Isabel Colegate.

Reported to have given the first chance to some 70 writers, he was particularly close to the novelist Simon Raven. Blond set up various publishing firms over the years, including Blond Educational in 1962, which he sold in 1969 to CBS, and he went into partnership with Desmond Briggs as Blond & Briggs in 1960, an informal arrangement which lasted for nearly 20 years, until Briggs retired and Harlech Television bought the company in 1979, retaining Blond as an advisor. In a management buyout Blond regained control after two years, and established his last partnership, Blond, Muller and White. Century Hutchinson absorbed this firm in 1987.

An early director and publisher of "Private Eye", his friendship with James Goldsmith (and other members of the Clermont Club circle) survived Goldsmith's numerous writs to the magazine in the mid-1970s.

In 1955 Blond married Charlotte, the daughter of John Strachey; the marriage lasted until 1960, and Strachey eventually married the political journalist Peter Jenkins. After a long relationship with Andrew McCall, Blond, who was bisexual,citation |title=Jew Made in England |last=Blond |first=Anthony |year=2004 |isbn=1857252004 |publisher=Timewell Press |ISBN status=May be invalid - please double check ] married Laura Hesketh in 1981. Blond also had a son by the author Cressida Lindsay.

His autobiography, "Jew Made in England", was published in 2004.

Anthony Blond died in hospital in Limoges, France, near the home he had shared with his wife for twenty-five years.

References

Obituaries

* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/01/db0101.xml Obituary] "The Daily Telegraph", March 1, 2008.
*Isabel Colegate [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/anthony-blond-bold-and-imaginative-publisher-with-an-infectious-love-of-life-790500.html Obituary,] "The Independent", 3 March 2008
* [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3460552.ece Obituary] , "The Times", March 1, 2008