When Nicolas Thompson started his career in 1951 he admirably corresponded to the popular conception of a gentleman publisher: tall (6ft 2in), elegant, quiet, shrewd and not too good at figures. By the time he retired, 40 years later, book publishing had become much rougher, noisier and more budget-conscious. Nevertheless, he had survived and prospered throughout this time of change.
Nicolas de la Mare Thompson was born in 1928. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. He read history — he had twice won the Rosebery History Prize at Eton — and his tutors, who included John Masterman and Hugh Trevor-Roper (the latter became a lifelong friend), thought well of him. He might have become a history don, but there was a publishing connection since Walter de la Mare was his grandfather and Richard de la Mare, Faber’s chairman, his uncle.
Publishing snared him, although there was no nepotism. Indeed, he spent an uncomfortable three months with a City tea firm before getting a start with the educational publishers James Nisbet.
Two years later, in 1953, through Trevor-Roper’s good offices, he joined Weidenfeld & Nicolson. There can seldom have been two characters more dissimilar than George Weidenfeld and Thompson; the Middle European Weidenfeld, flamboyant and sparkling with ingenious concepts, the very English Thompson reserved and liking to get the details right. In fact they made an excellent team, and Thompson later acknowledged gratefully how much he had learnt “from George’s skill in persuading people to write books, in getting books, in exploiting subsidiary and US rights — and he was a master of public relations”. He was engaged in editorial, production and publicity work; was even, briefly, the company accountant (Thompson commented, with some surprise, “it didn’t prove really disastrous”). He soon became managing director and held the job for 14 years.
In 1970 Thompson moved on to take charge of Pitman’s publishing business. This was a public company (although still with a powerful family interest), much older and larger than Weidenfeld and engaged in printing and training as well as educational publishing. It struggled commercially in the early 1980s and was eventually bought by Longman, but throughout his 15 years with the company Thompson’s publishing sector, with a high proportion of export and international business, never failed to turn in a profit.
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This consistent success in the face of background difficulties was noted by BTR, which then owned Heinemann. It offered him the job of Heinemann group managing director and, despite doubts about being part of an industrial conglomerate, he accepted. Six months later, Heinemann was bought by Paul Hamlyn’s Octopus Group (whose board he then joined) and two years on, Octopus itself was bought by Reed International. Thompson again found himself working for a large conglomerate.
These were times of expansion, excitement and change. Some directorial heads rolled, but Thompson’s stayed secure; his wide experience, domestic and international, in both general and educational publishing, had made him a valuable professional with a cool head and safe pair of hands.
He became chairman of Heinemann Educational Books in 1985. At the time of his retirement Reed International Books turned over more than £400 million — huge in British publishing terms.
Thompson ended his publishing career in 1991 but continued for some time to act as a shrewd consultant, including a temporary spell standing in for the head of Reed’s general publishing division when the Old Etonian establishment figure found himself publishing Madonna’s controversial illustrated memoir, Sex.
He contributed importantly to the work of the trade, serving variously as chairman of the Publishers Association’s Anti-Piracy Committee and of the Book Development Council, then the association’s export arm.
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He was married first to Erica Pennell in 1956; she died as he approached retirement. There were two sons and a daughter from the marriage. Subsequently he was married to Caroline Middleton, who survives him.
Nicolas Thompson, publisher, was born on June 4, 1928. He died on April 25, 2010, aged 81