This letter from Tom Sharpe appeared in The Independent on 16 September 1990.
Sir: As someone who has known Tom Rosenthal for nearly twenty years and who would never have been able to continue writing without the financial help I received from him when he was head of Secker & Warburg, I would like to comment on William Leith’s article “Double Deutsch”.
I think it pointless to discuss the main issue which had to do with the ownership of a private company and the right of the owner to conduct his business along his own line. It is the other aspects of the article which I and, I suspect, others found offensive.
The article portrays both Mr Deutsch and Tom Rosenthal in the cheapest light and apparently equates them with the barely literate accountants who have control over the editorial staff in the great publishing conglomerates. In fact, both men have already proved their distinction as successful and brilliant publishers. To concentrate almost entirely on tittle-tattle about their idiosyncracies at the expense of their literary accomplishments is to do them less than justice and to demean your own standing as a paper of quality.
TOM SHARPE
Cambridge