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Book Presentation & Discussion with Thomas Harding – The Maverick – George Weidenfeld and the Golden Age of Publishing
November 25 | 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Hella Pick Lecture Series with the Weidenfeld Institute, University of Sussex
The Austrian Cultural Forum invites you to the third event in the Hella Pick Lecture series in cooperation with the Sussex Weidenfeld Institute of Jewish Studies.
The evening will feature a book presentation of The Maverick – George Weidenfeld and the Golden Age of Publishing by renowned author Thomas Harding who will present his remarkable biography of the namesake of the Weidenfeld Institute – famed publisher Lord George Weidenfeld.
The presentation will be followed by a discussion with the director of the Weidenfeld Institute, Professor Gideon Reuvenui.
The Sussex Weidenfeld Institute of Jewish Studies, launched in 2019, is an interdisciplinary research hub that places the Jewish experience in a broader context. Aimed to act as an agent of change, their work is focussed on the present and making past experiences relevant in a world increasingly divided by disinformation and prejudice.
The Institute is home to the Centre for German-Jewish Studies, which for over two decades has been at the forefront of academic enquiry into the history, culture and thought of Jewish refugees from German-speaking lands. The Institute also works with Digital Holocaust Memory and Education Projects and sponsors prestigious Fellowship programmes.
Thomas Harding www.thomasharding.com is a bestselling author whose books have been translated into twenty languages. His publications include Hanns and Rudolf which won the Wingate Prize for Non-Fiction and Blood on the Page which won the Crime Writers’ Association’s Golden Dagger Award for Non-Fiction. His other books have received wide acclaim including The House by the Lake (shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and extracted in BBC Radio 4’s Book Of The Week), Future History (nominated for the German Youth Literature Award ‘Best Youth Book’ and performed by Berlin Youth Ballet) and White Debt (longlisted for the Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing and dramatised on BBC Radio 4). In addition, his book The Maverick: George Weidenfeld and the Golden Age of Publishing was chosen as a New York Times Critics’ Pick for 2023. His most recent book, The Einstein Vendetta, was published in 2025.
Thomas has written for the Sunday Times, the Washington Post and the Guardian, among other publications. In 2024, he was elected as a visiting fellow of Jesus College Cambridge. For ten years (2014-2024) he was president of the Alexander Haus project outside of Berlin.
About The Maverick
After arriving in London just before World War II as a penniless Austrian-Jewish refugee, George Weidenfeld went on to transform not only the world of publishing but the culture of ideas. The books that he published include momentous titles such as Lolita, Double Helix, The Group and The Hedgehog and the Fox, with authors he championed ranging from Joan Didion, Mary McCarthy, JD Salinger, Edna O’Brien, Henry Miller, Harold Wilson, Saul Bellow and Henry Kissinger. His role as publisher brought him into the orbit of influential figures such as George Bush, Ann Getty, Donald Trump and LBJ.
In this first biography, Thomas Harding provides a full, unvarnished, and at times difficult history of this complex and fascinating character. Throughout his long career, he was written about in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time Magazine, Vanity Fair, and other publications. Was he, as described by some, the “greatest salesperson,” “the world’s best networker,” “the publisher’s publisher,” and “a great intellectual”? Was his lifelong effort to be the world’s most famous host a cover for his loneliness? Who, in fact, was the real George Weidenfeld and how did he rise so successfully within the ranks of New York and London society?
