Colgate University Press
Among the many publishers around John Cowper, one should mention also the small but efficient Colgate University Press, which can be proud of 39 titles, 34 of which concern one family of writers, the Powys, and in particular John Cowper's Autobiography with its precious index.
According to its founder, Robert L. Blackmore, the whole story started back in 1957 when Norman H. Strouse, stepfather of a Colgate undergraduate, gave Colgate a valuable collection of manuscripts and letters by John Cowper Powys. In 1960, having worked for some time at Time Inc., Prof. Blackmore came back to Colgate and discovered this mine on and around John Cowper Powys. In June 1964 the English poet Kenneth Hopkins arrived and asked to see the manuscripts. The two men worked together on them and Robert Blackmore suddenly had the idea that a partnership with Macdonald might be possible. The English publishers of Powys accepted, on condition that they pay $1,400 for American rights. Following Joe Slater's advice, since they didn't have this sum available, they borrowed it among friends they knew. As Blackmore says himself:
The names of the six families who, with the president, were the 13 founding partners of Colgate University Press belong on a scroll in the office of the Press, the Snow Room of Case Library: Mary and Herman Brautigam, Helen and Bruce Brown, Betty and Bill Fitchen, Molly and Warren Ramshaw, Vivien and Joe Slater, Lucia and Bob Blackmore.
Just before sending the $1,400, however, I made one more sales pitch. To my wife: Would you like a new project now that your sons are off to college (Colgate '65 and '68)? A very mixed job. Lots of routine like invoices and inventories and getting books through U.S. Customs and corresponding with authors who want to be published and helping design book jackets and ads and doing royalty statements and writing to every American library to ask if they have any Powys manuscripts or letters. No pay. No benefits.
"Sure", she said, and Colgate University Press came into being.
(...)Then, the first book launched and the checks coming quite fast in the mail (...) we signed contracts with Macdonald to become American publishers of the entire program of Powys issues and reissues. Several novels, already printed, required only a Colgate University Press sticker on the title page before going on sale. Others, including the "remarkable Autobiography" (quote Margaret Drabble's Oxford Companion To English Literature) are fully Colgate editions.
Small but Focused, by Robert L. Blackmore, in The Powys Newsletter, July 1991.
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