Jonathan Cape Ltd.

Herbert Jonathan Cape (1879-1960) was the son of a builder who started as an apprentice in the bookselling trade. By 1919 he was in a position to start his own small publishing firm, Jonathan Page and Company (Page being his mother's maiden name). In 1920 he took on George Wren Howard as junior partner, and the firm of Jonathan Cape was launched in January 1921, with the publication of a new edition of Charles Montagu Doughty's Travels in Arabia Deserta, with an introduction by T.E. Lawrence. Edward Garnett was employed as chief literary adviser. In May 1921 Cape acquired the A.C. Fifield list, and added authors such as H.G. Wells, Laurence Houseman and Samuel Butler to his list, which already included an impressive array of American authors. As capital was badly needed during these early years, the firm was incorporated as Jonathan Cape Limited in 1924.

During the 1920s Cape had some notable successes, including work by H.E. Bates and Ernest Hemingway, T.E. Lawrence's Revolt in the Desert and Mary Webb's Precious Bane . The firm was also involved in the scandal surrounding Radclyffe Hall's lesbian novel The Well of Loneliness . At the same time, Cape was involved in an independent American company, first set up in partnership with Harrison Smith in 1929 and later with Robert Ballou. However, the American venture was hit by the Depression and in 1932 Cape filed for bankruptcy.

...