HURST, Christopher 1929-

PERSONAL: Born December 24, 1929, in Ascot, Berkshire, England; son of Sir Arthur F. (a physician) and Cushla (Riddiford) Hurst; divorced; children: three sons, one daughter. Education: Oxford University, M.A., 1953. Hobbies and other interests: "Passionately interested in music, architecture, and the visual arts."

ADDRESSES: Offıce—38 King Street, London WC2E 8JT, England.

CAREER: Publisher. Worked in various capacities; Architectural Review, production editor, 1954-67; C. Hurst and Co. (publisher), founder, managing director, 1967—; Hindu, Chennai, India, columnist, 1993—. Military service: British Army, infantry, stationed in Cypress, 1948-50; became second lieutenant.

MEMBER: Publishers Association (member of council, 1993-99).

WRITINGS:

The View from King Street: An Essay in Autobiography, Thalia (London, England), 1997.

The Invisible Art, Hurst (London, England), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: In The Invisible Art, Christopher Hurst presents a vade mecum for scholarly publishers based on his fifty years' experience. The book's first half, "The Physical Book," considers layout, typesetting, and other aesthetic issues, while the second half, "The Scholarly Publisher," considers some wider issues and processes; advances the theory that a good editorial brain is the best tool for drafting and examining contracts. In the Bookseller, Andrew MacLennan wrote, "Every paragraph proclaims [the book] a labour of love." He also noted, "There is something genuinely heroic about the range and degree of hands-on engagement that the book embodies: it purrs with a craftsman's tortured but happy commitment to maintaining the standards, if not necessarily the practices, of a more exacting age."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Bookseller, July 5, 2002, p. 14.

Times Literary Supplement, September 19, 1997, p. 30; October 18, 2002, p. 35.