Editing Rupert Hart-Davis (section)

===Independent publisher===
{{Main|Publications by Rupert Hart-Davis}}
After the war, Hart-Davis was unable to obtain satisfactory terms from Jonathan Cape to return to the company, and in 1946 he struck out on his own, founding Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd, in partnership with [[David Garnett]] and [[Edward Preston Young|Teddy Young]] and with financial backing from [[Eric Linklater]], [[Arthur Ransome]], [[H. E. Bates]], [[Geoffrey Keynes]], and [[Celia Johnson|Celia]] and [[Peter Fleming (writer)|Peter Fleming]]. His own literary tastes dictated which books were accepted and which rejected. Frequently he turned down commercial successes because he thought little of the works' literary merit.  He later said, "I usually found that the sales of the books I published were in inverse ratio to my opinion of them.  That's why I established some sort of reputation without making any money."<ref>Ziegler, p. 138</ref>

In 1946 paper was still rationed; the firm used Garnett's ex-serviceman's ration, but as only one ex-serviceman's ration could be used per firm it could not use that of Hart-Davis. However, the firm was given the allocation at cost of a Glasgow bookseller and occasional pre-war publisher, Alan Jackson. The partners decided to start initially with reprints of dead authors, as if a new book became a best-seller the firm would not have paper for a reprint and the author might leave. They made an exception for [[Stephen Potter]]'s ''[[Gamesmanship]]'' which was a short book, collected every ream of paper they could buy and printed 25,000 copies. Likewise 25,000 copies of Eric Linklater's ''Sealskin Trousers'' (five short stories) were printed.<ref>Hart-Davis (1998), p. 6f</ref>

The firm had best-sellers such as ''Gamesmanship'' and [[Heinrich Harrer]]'s ''[[Seven Years in Tibet]]'', which sold more than 200,000 copies.<ref name=times79>''The Times'', 29 November 1979, p. 15</ref> Also in the early years Hart-Davis secured [[Ray Bradbury]] for his firm, recognising the quality of a science fiction author who also wrote poetry.<ref>Ziegler, p. 148</ref> Other good sellers were Peter Fleming, Eric Linklater and [[Gerald Durrell]]; but best-sellers were too few, and though the output of Rupert-Hart-Davis Ltd was regularly praised for the high quality of its printing and binding, that too was an expense that weighed the company down.<ref>Ziegler, p. 144</ref> A further expense was added when [[G. M. Young]]'s biography of [[Stanley Baldwin]] was published in 1952; both [[Winston Churchill]] and [[Lord Beaverbrook]] threatened to sue if certain passages were not removed or amended. With the help of the lawyer [[Arnold Goodman]] an agreement was reached to replace the offending sentences, but the firm had the "hideously expensive" job of removing and replacing seven leaves from 7,580 copies.<ref>Hart-Davis (1998), p. 38</ref>

By the mid-fifties, Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd could no longer sustain an independent existence and in 1956 it was absorbed into the [[Heinemann (publisher)|Heinemann]] group.<ref>"Mr Bernstein buys book firm" in ''The Times'', 11 September 1963, p. 10.</ref> Heinemann sold the imprint to the American firm [[Harcourt Brace]] in 1961, who sold it to the [[Granada plc|Granada Group]] in 1963, when Hart-Davis retired from publishing, though remaining as non-executive chairman until 1968.<ref name=dnb/> Granada merged Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd  with sister imprint MacGibbon & Kee in 1972 to form [[Hart-Davis, MacGibbon]].

The Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd logo was a woodcut of a fox, with a background of oak leaves. The company was based at No. 36 [[Soho Square]], London W1. Reprint series published over the years were the ''Reynard Library'' of great English writers and the ''Mariners Library'' of nautical books.