The recession arrived early in Bloomsbury. No sooner did the pound start rising last summer, than reams of ever-so-carefully tailored book budgets began to come apart at the seams. Most UK publishers must export to survive; when their national currency is overvalued, royalty revenues from abroad diminish and sales of new titles become an increasingly difficult proposition.

Brave faces were kept on until after the Frankfurt Book Fair (though some houses, such as Collins, whose difficulties had reached the public prints before the Fair, were hard pressed to fight off the vultures), but once the order books had been scrutinised and the sums re-done, the executive slide-rules