Social Climb...BUT KEEP IT CLASSY

One man's quest to make friends in high places. All in the name of great literature, of course.

- THOMAS HARDING

The first line of George Weidenfeld's New York Times obituary in 2016 identified him as "a friend of the powerful." But Weidenfeld didn't inherit his influence. Born to a Jewish family in Austria in 1919, he escaped to London in 1938, and though he spoke little English at the time, he found work translating for the BBC. In just a few years Weidenfeld's fortunes had changed: He launched the soon-to-be-storied publishing house Weidenfeld & Nicolson with literary blueblood Nigel Nicolson, married into a British retail fortune, and began a strategic rise to the top of English society. Before too long he found himself a publishing titan (working with such authors as Vladimir Nabokov, Samuel Beckett, and Henry Kissinger), a baron, and a confidant of presidents, popes, and rock stars. But despite his social success in England, making his mark in the U.S.-as this excerpt from Thomas Harding's new biography, Maverick, shows-was an entirely different story.

George sat at the corner of the oak boardroom table. Next to him was Ann Getty, company president and chief investor in his American venture, Weidenfeld - & Nicolson New York. Also in the room were senior staff members including Dan Green, the CEO; John Herman, the editor-in-chief; and Juliet Nicolson, head of publicity and subsidiary rights. This was a meeting to discuss which books they would next take on.

The meeting was taking place in the offices of Weidenfeld & Nicolson New York at the Harper & Row building on East 53rd Street. The carpet was a lush green and custom ordered. Just outside the boardroom was a kitchen with a walk-in fridge stocked with champagne. In the air hung the smell of cigar tobacco. This meant that George had been in the office for at least an hour.