My friend David Elliott, who has died aged 79, spent 60 years selling, writing and publishing books. David became a well-known figure, supporting and advising Naim Attallah, the owner of Quartet Books and the Women’s Press, but is best remembered as a facilitator to other writers. He was a great editor: intuitive, educated and professional, he enabled many authors to raise their game.
Educated at Wanstead county high school, David went on to train as an art teacher at Goldsmiths College in the 1960s. Before finishing, he fell in love with selling books, eventually leading him to run Claude Gill Books on Oxford Street and manage bookshops for Words & Music. In 1976 he was introduced to Attallah who had acquired Quartet Books. David joined as sales director, later becoming editorial director, and began a wider collaboration that lasted nearly 50 years.
David authored several books including a biography of the sculptor David Wynne (2010) and A Trade of Charms (1992), a celebration of the book trade “before the hustlers gained control … with their buying and selling, merging and greed … which ravaged the book trade … they thought books were the same as shoes”.
In the 1980s he co-edited Book Preview with Brian Perman, a periodical appraising forthcoming books. He also worked for two publishers, Bellew and Immel, and co-founded Elliott & Thompson with Brad Thompson in 2001.
David was born in Leyton, east London, the younger of two sons of Elsie (Spatcher), a sales assistant in a dress shop, and James Elliott, a printer for the Daily Worker (now the Morning Star); both were members of the British Communist party. James survived a head injury on the evening of Belgium’s liberation, leaving him unable to taste or smell. But with his commitment to communist ideals intact he joined the Daily Worker as a printer. David recalled May Day parades and annual Daily Worker rallies. By his teens he was drawing away from his father’s views on Soviet communism. He remained politically radical, referring to himself as a “democratic socialist”.
Apart from a brief period in Wiltshire in the early 2000s, David spent his life living in London. He had a lifelong love of classical music, opera, art, cinema and, above all, books. He campaigned effectively on social issues – especially unpopular ones – and had a gift for loyal friendship and unconditional love.
Friends and colleagues remember a fun-loving, forceful presence whose strong convictions enhanced their political and cultural awareness. Even after retirement, youngsters continued to see him as a mentor and kept closely in contact.
In 1971, he met Barbara (nee Gordon), an American studying psychology in London, through a therapy group. They got together in 1976 and were married in 1978.
Barbara survives him, as does his niece, Sara, and nephew, Joe.
