It appears the long-running saga of author Andrew Malcolm's spat with Oxford University Press (see Eyes passim ad infinitum) may finally have come to a full stop.

A recent Times Higher Education Supplement finally ran a review of Malcolm's The Remedy, the self-published account of his long legal battle with OUP. The reviewer, a former OUP editor called Henry Hardy, spoke warmly of Malcolm's "real gift for farce" and "considerable talents", as well as referring to Malcolm's "two excellent books: an engaging and original introduction to philosophy in dialogue form Making Names and this gripping story of the alleged ineptitude and skulduggery with which he was treated by a publisher to whom he offered it."

Hardy says the book's publication foundered, despite the enthusiasm of the editor who commissioned it, because of an "internal disagreement" with a senior OUP executive (though Hardy does not name that exec, it was Richard Charkin, now CEO of Macmillan) which saw the editor over-ruled.

'Bookworm'

Click for the next item in the Malcolm vs. Oxford saga or for Hardy's THES review.