Helen Wallace, Boosey & Hawkes: The Publishing Story,
Boosey & Hawkes, London, 2007, 256pp

Helen Wallace tells us that this book was not undertaken as a vanity project. Its aim from the outset, she says, was to give an impartial account of the triumphs, trials and tribulations of one of the great music publishing houses, and the result is a lively and eminently readable record of eighty years of activity. The well-known Boosey & Hawkes premises at 295 Regent Street in London, which the firm had occupied for 75 years, was being vacated in 2005 and Wallace, who was commissioned to produce a brief summary of the company’s history, had a mere four months to examine the entire archive. As she sifted through thousands upon thousands of files, the...