Books: Publishing Rises in the West

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Black Sparrow's reprints of Lewis' iconoclastic works, like the magazine Blast (1914 and 1915) and the autobiographical Rude Assignment, were illustrated with Lewis' adrenal scrawls and became another profitable venture. Deliberately bold typefaces that varied wildly in size to emphasize certain words, according to the author's wishes, as well as surreal pronouncements ("A picture of a man either is or is not") exerted an appeal on college audiences: more than 50,000 copies of Lewisiana have been sold, and other volumes are on the way. "Lewis wrote 45 books," proclaims Martin. "And Black Sparrow has reprint rights to all of them. It's like having an exclusive option on the Inca Empire." If North Point represents the classical approach to publishing and Black Sparrow the romantic, William Kaufmann Inc. stands for the technocratic. The two letters most frequently heard at Kaufmann's modest headquarters in Los Altos, Calif., are "AI" (artificial intelligence), the science of making computers "think." In 1980 a professor from nearby Stanford came to Kaufmann, a former editor of science books, with a handbook of artificial intelligence. Most Eastern publishers might have rejected it by return mail; Kaufmann enthusiastically agreed to publish the three-volume set for $120 per set. A science book club alone ordered more than 10,000 sets, surprising everyone but the publisher. "People with unusual projects have been attracted to us since we began in 1972," observes Kaufmann. "Our image may be technical and scientific, but our range includes music and even art, then and now."

Kaufmann's list reaches as far back as the 19th century, with Martin Gardner's meticulously Annotated Snark, containing the text and original illustrations by Lewis Carroll -- and as far forward as The New Book of California Tomorrow, analyzing environmental issues that affect the company's home state. Although technology accounts for most of the firm's more than $1 million sales, its environmental and urban planning books are in many libraries. In addition, Kaufmann, like his West Coast colleagues, indulges some personal whims. Gardner's first novel, The Flight of Peter Fromm, written when the author was 59, was rejected by several major houses; Kaufmann found it "hilarious" and published it. The low-selling Almanac of American Letters was issued because the publisher found its collage of literary trivia irresistible. (Items: Horatio Alger was unfit for service in the Union Army. The original title of Death of a Salesman was The Inside of His Head. Tarzan does not live in sin, he was married to Jane by her father, a minister. Poet Robert Lowell twice tried to enlist in the armed forces; both times he was rejected. By the time he was called up, Lowell had become a conscientious objector.)

"Bill Kaufmann is the kind of publisher an author dreams of," says Gardner. "He takes chances -- something no large Eastern firm dares to do. And he won't compromise on binding, paper or typeface. There is no such thing as a 'middle book' to him. All of his books are important, all of his authors are stars."