Maschler started his publishing career in 1955, as a production assistant at
André Deutsch, followed by a stint at
MacGibbon & Kee between 1956 and 1958. It was here that he published his first anthology of essays,
Declaration, in 1957. The collection had essays from leading writers of the time. Maschler published two books,
In His Own Write (1964) and
A Spaniard in the Works (1965), based on
John Lennon's doodles.
P. H. Newby was the first winner of the prize for
Something to Answer For, in 1969. The prize was sponsored by the Booker–McConnell group from 1969 to 2001, the
Man Group from 2002 to 2019, and subsequently by the charitable foundation
Crankstart. In 1991, he stepped down from his position as the chairman of Jonathan Cape, when the company was sold to
Si Newhouse's
Random House Publishing. The company had been losing money for a few years prior, necessitating the deal. He was diagnosed with
manic depression shortly after the deal went through.
Criticism Maschler was sometimes criticised for his forceful approach to publishing, with a charge that while he was good at identifying commercial best sellers, he had "little interest in books for their own sake". He was considered a galvanising force and criticised for being inhospitable to some of his authors. It would be 14 years until Pym had another novel published. The novelist never fully forgave Maschler. When she was rediscovered in 1977, she refused to let Cape publish her new novels. Pym and her sister Hilary invented a weak-tasting dessert, a combination of
lime jelly and milk, and called it "Maschler pudding". After Pym's death, Maschler appeared in the 1992 television film ''Miss Pym's Day Out'' recounting his decision to reject the novel (which was posthumously published in 1982). == Personal life and death ==