I wish there were zero rating points available on LibraryThing. If I hadn't been a postgrad reader for the James Tait Black prize at the University of Edinburgh, I would never have picked up this truly pointless tome. As it was, I started to speed read, then became fascinated by the sheer awfulness of the subject and prose quality. Here's my original review from 2004:

This text has no introduction, and no stated intent (curiously, it is prefaced by an explanation of 1969’s decimalization). Its form is that of a conventional biographical account of the publisher’s life, from his birth in 1907 to his death in 1999. As the picture of Rupert Hart-Davis develops he becomes less and less likeable, and it becomes harder to believe in him as the “man of letters” of the title. Anti-intellectual, incurious and jingoistic, Hart-Davis believed that “Wogs began at Calais: they had done so when he was at Balliol and would continue to do so until any travel was beyond him.” What is perhaps more unpleasant is the author’s apparent sympathy for these sentiments; his lack of acknowledgement that some readers might find this xenophobia unattractive. Less prominent but equally unappealing is the submerged strand of misogyny that runs below the surface of the narrative, from the blame accrued by his mother Sibbie for Hart-Davis’ childhood illness through the later accounts of his four marriages and various other liaisons with women. Likeability aside, this is a perfectly competent and readable biography of a man who made a handful of significant contributions to publishing in his time, and who had some famous friends. In the final passage of the book, Ziegler reflects on Hart-Davis’ legacy. He complains that the Times obituary, in calling Hart-Davis’ tastes “strikingly middle-brow”, has missed the point: Rupert was “neither an intellectual nor a daring innovator”, says Ziegler, “nor would he have wished to be remembered as such.” On the whole, the same could be said of this book. ( )

This text has no introduction, and no stated intent (curiously, it is prefaced by an explanation of 1969’s decimalization). Its form is that of a conventional biographical account of the publisher’s life, from his birth in 1907 to his death in 1999. As the picture of Rupert Hart-Davis develops he becomes less and less likeable, and it becomes harder to believe in him as the “man of letters” of the title. Anti-intellectual, incurious and jingoistic, Hart-Davis believed that “Wogs began at Calais: they had done so when he was at Balliol and would continue to do so until any travel was beyond him.” What is perhaps more unpleasant is the author’s apparent sympathy for these sentiments; his lack of acknowledgement that some readers might find this xenophobia unattractive. Less prominent but equally unappealing is the submerged strand of misogyny that runs below the surface of the narrative, from the blame accrued by his mother Sibbie for Hart-Davis’ childhood illness through the later accounts of his four marriages and various other liaisons with women. Likeability aside, this is a perfectly competent and readable biography of a man who made a handful of significant contributions to publishing in his time, and who had some famous friends. In the final passage of the book, Ziegler reflects on Hart-Davis’ legacy. He complains that the Times obituary, in calling Hart-Davis’ tastes “strikingly middle-brow”, has missed the point: Rupert was “neither an intellectual nor a daring innovator”, says Ziegler, “nor would he have wished to be remembered as such.” On the whole, the same could be said of this book.