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Kurt Enoch (22 November 1895 – 15 February 1982) was a German-born publisher who co-founded Albatross Books in Germany and Penguin Group and New American Library in the United States, bringing high-quality paperback fiction and non-fiction to the mass market in those countries.
After graduating from school and working as a volunteer in the Gselliussche Buchhandlung, a bookshop in Berlin, the First World War began and he joined the German army and was sent to the Western front on 27 November 1915.Margaret Enoch, op.cit., p. 147f.
Kurt Enoch completed a doctorate at the University of Hamburg and took over the family business from his father, whose health was declining. He strived for a national profile for the publishing business by seeking out important writers and talented new writers and adding foreign translations and books about other parts of the world to the catalogue.Margaret Enoch, op. cit., p. 46f.
Similarly to the long established Tauchnitz Editions, this new series published inexpensive English-language reprints of American and British authors and sold them in all parts of the world except the British Empire. The list included highbrow authors (such as Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and D.H. Lawrence), middlebrow authors (such as Richard Aldington) and lowbrow writing (including detective fiction).Duncan Fallowell, "The books the Nazis didn’t burn", The Spectator, 13 May 2017. Retrieved 15 August 2017.
However, the Albatross Modern Continental Library stood out in the marketplace "with an eye for design and colour",* Robert Eaglestone, "Strange Bird: The Albatross Press and the Third Reich, by Michelle K. Troy", Times Higher Education, 18 May 2017. Retrieved 15 August 2017. which included the introduction of colour-coding for different categories of books "in the form of fully saturated covers: red for crime, blue for romance, yellow for literary novels and essays, purple for biography and history, green for travel, orange for short stories", improved typography and modern editorial policies. These bright and modern looking volumes sold in vast numbers.
The series was soon outselling Tauchnitz Editions and in 1934 Albatross Books assumed editorial control of Tauchnitz. Enoch would act as the sole distributor for the series.Karl H. Pressler, "Tauchnitz und Albatross. Zur Geschichte des Taschenbuchs", Aus dem Antiquariat, Boersenblatt fuer den Deutschen Buchhandel, Frankfurter Ausgabe, Nr. 102 (December 1984).
When war broke out in 1939, Enoch was briefly interned in France. With the German occupation of France, he realized he had to give up his publishing company and flee, and he managed to obtain entry visas for himself, his wife and his two daughters to the United States. They fled across the Pyrenees and through Spain and Portugal and finally arrived in the United States on 12 October 1940.
Unlike certain other German emigre publishers in the United States including Kurt and Helen Wolff who concentrated on publishing European classics and works from writers recently exiled from Nazi-ruled countries, Enoch eagerly sought available opportunities in the existing American market. He noted that there was limited access to books outside the larger cities of the United States, a gap that the firm Pocket Books was attempting to fill with inexpensive "mass market" fiction paperbacks. Enoch believed there was an untapped opportunity to publish paperbacks of non-fiction, of more sophisticated fiction, and of the classics.
Enoch suggested to the British publisher Allen Lane that Penguin Books should move from just having an American sales agency for its British publications to setting up as a publisher in the United States. Lane agreed and Penguin Books Inc. was established with Enoch as vice-president and Lane and Ian Ballantine as business partners.Margaret Enoch, op.cit., p. 147f.
The new firm was profitable but profits were small. At the end of the Second World War Ballantine wanted to take the Penguin Inc. list down-market and compete with mass market publishers like Pocket Books. When he was rebuffed, he left and went to set up Bantam Books, leaving Enoch in charge of Penguin.Gordon Graham, "Kurt Enoch: Paperback Pioneer", in: Richard Abel and William Gordon Graham, eds., op.cit., p. 45.
Then Allen Lane, unannounced, brought in Victor Weybright to work in an executive role in Penguin Inc. "In fact Weybright had the impression that he was being brought in to run it."Gordon Graham, "Kurt Enoch: Paperback Pioneer", in: Richard Abel and William Gordon Graham, eds., op.cit., p. 46. After some initial wariness, Enoch and Weybright came to respect each other's talent and work well with each other as partners in Penguin's American branch.
In spite of the firm's increasing success, Lane was not satisfied: he disliked "Enoch's and Weybright's cover pictures and editorial choices" which violated his "more puritanical standards and personal taste" and his desire that Penguin Inc. be a mirror image of Penguin in the United Kingdom.
Enoch was president of NAL until 1960. Under his watch it published reprints of literary value, paperback editions of classics, and non-fiction for general readers and for classroom use and a number of prestigious book series including Signet Books, Signet Classics Signet Classics (New American Library, Inc.) - Book Series List, publishinghistory.com. Retrieved 26 August 2017. and Mentor Books. Mentor Books (New American Library, Inc.) - Book Series List, publishinghistory.com. Retrieved 26 August 2017.
In 1960 Enoch and Weybright sold the New American Library to the Times Mirror Company of Los Angeles. Enoch joined the Times Mirror Board of Directors.
Martin Levin, president of the Association of American Publishers, summed up the achievements of the New American Library under the tutelage of Enoch, as follows:
New American Library was a brilliant concept well ahead of its time. Kurt Enoch brought his special skills to this line of books. He demonstrated that the classics, from Shakespeare to '1984,' and Mickey Spillane, William Styron and James Bond, could all live comfortably on one publishing list. His special pride was that this company flourishes today as it did when he was its first president. "Kurt Enoch, 86: Pioneer in Paperback Publishing", The New York Times, 17 February 1982. Retrieved 15 August 2017.
In 1962 Enoch and five other American booksellers visited the Soviet Union as part of a U.S. State Department cultural exchange program."Russians Termed Hungry For Books", Los Angeles Times, 30 November 1962.
He served on the American Book Publishers Council, the National Book Committee and the Franklin Book Program. He wrote numerous articles on the "paperback revolution" and its importance in providing millions of ordinary citizens with access to quality books with tough and independent thinking at a modest and affordable price.
He died on 15 February 1982 while on holidays in Puerto Rico.
He became a naturalized American citizen in 1948. Kurt Enoch’s petition for naturalization (5 April 1948), immigrantentrepreneurship.org. Retrieved 26 August 2017.
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