Julia MacRae, doyenne of children’s publishing who worked with Raymond Briggs on The Snowman – obituary
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Julia MacRae, who has died aged 88, elevated the status of children’s books both commercially and culturally during a 35-year career in the publishing industry; among her greatest triumphs was Raymond Briggs’s The Snowman (1978), which has since been adapted for television and become a perennial Christmas classic.
She went on to establish Julia MacRae Books, publishing not only children’s literature but also the two-volume The Story of Britain by Sir Roy Strong and Full Circle, the autobiographical journal of her friend, the mezzo soprano Dame Janet Baker, which became a bestseller.
The imprint began when Julia McRae was in her mid-forties; by then she had spent 20 years in publishing, half of them with Hamish Hamilton; she had a seat on the board of Thomson Books and control of an annual list of 120 titles. Then something quite literally snapped: her leg was broken in a toboggan accident on Hampstead Heath on New Year’s Eve.
Taking stock of the future, she resolved to go independent, opening a tiny office in 1979 in Dover Street, Mayfair, with three of her closest colleagues. On their first official day in business she had no idea how to begin and asked them: “Shall we start with strategy?” “No,” replied one. “We should have coffee.” Flowers, champagne and letters of support soon began arriving.
Their first eight titles, all for children, appeared in 1980 and included Anthony Browne’s Look What I’ve Got, about a boy called Sam who is forced to admire the odious Jeremy’s possessions, which include a bike, a football and a gorilla suit. Alice and Martin Provensen’s The Mother Goose Book contained more than 150 rhymes in their traditional form with illustrations, while We Hide You Seek, by Jose Aruego and Ariane Dewey, involved hunting for animals hidden in the pictures.
Julia MacRae Books was at first part of Franklin Watts, then Walker Books, and later Random House. It gave its owner more than 15 happy and productive years, during which she was at the centre of children’s publishing. Each spring she could be found holding court at the Children’s Book Fair in Bologna.
The greatest satisfaction, she said, came from the discovery of new talent. One evening she called in to meet Ron Maris, who showed her Better Move On, Frog – “and I bought it at once”. On another occasion she reluctantly agreed to read Jakey, a 16-page story by Janni Howker. “The hair at the back of my head stood up as I read… what a writer.”
Julia MacRae continued to work with Briggs, publishing The Bear (1994), in which one night a large polar bear climbs into Tilly’s bedroom causing all sorts of bear-size problems. It was, noted The Daily Telegraph, “a satisfying tale, told with warmth and humour”.
By then this calm and impeccably dressed publisher had the measure of her curmudgeonly author. Her margin notes on his earlier book, Father Christmas (1973), about a grumpily down-to-earth Santa Claus, were once unwittingly revealed in an exhibition of the original artwork: “Please, Raymond. No full-frontal nudity for Father Christmas.”
Julia Anne MacRae was born in Adelaide, South Australia, on April 3 1934. She started her career as a librarian but was furious to be assigned to the children’s section of her local library. While considering whether to resign, she was surprised to discover the first-rate minds involved in children’s literature.
In 1960 she moved to Britain, like many young Australians “on the boomerang” (intending to return home eventually), as well as to nurse a broken heart. “The usual thing,” she said wryly.
She felt at home immediately, thanks to a childhood stuffed with British books.
“There was Buckingham Palace, where Christopher Robin and I had gone with Alice, there was the Thames, where Ratty and Mole had messed about in boats, and there was every British schoolboy looking just like my adored William,” she wrote, illustrating the role of books as powerful image-makers.
Before long Julia MacRae had found employment editing children’s books at Constable, where she was mentored by Grace Hogarth, who since the 1930s had been the doyenne of British children’s books. One of her first jobs was to write the catalogue and cover “blurb” for an American novel called Mary Jane (1959) by Dorothy Sterling, about racism in southern schools.
She recalled being “flung in at the deep end… and you either sank or swam, but you learnt”. There was no demarcation between editorial, rights and promotions. Instead, she found herself undertaking all those aspects of publishing and more, “probably very badly, but from my point of view invaluably”.
On one occasion she was tasked with editing a sports journalist’s novel, which was written in a racy style. After going through it meticulously with her blue pencil, changing every colloquialism and pungent phrase into what she considered to be the Queen’s English, she proudly presented the results to Grace Hogarth, who coldly announced that she had destroyed the author’s style and ordered her to “go and put it all back again”. It was an important lesson, she said, adding: “The editor is the servant of the work, not the creator of it.”
After a while Julia MacRae chose to widen her horizons by moving to Collins, where she was able to meet fellow publishers from the US, Australia and across Europe. “Children’s books were becoming international big business, all the time making a more substantial contribution to turnover,” she noted.
In 1967 she was head-hunted by Hamish Hamilton, where she oversaw titles such as Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969), Jane Gardam’s first book, A Few Fair Days (1971), and Briggs’s Fungus the Bogeyman (1977), about a working-class character whose mundane job involves scaring human beings. Before long she had been invited to join the board, becoming one of the first women executives in the publishing industry.
When Hamilton became part of the Thomson Group, its publishers were ordered to become more accountable and she was sent on a course called “finance for non-financial managers” at Ashridge Management College. “After we had both failed to master the concept of balance sheets, Julia rapidly persuaded me that we had to escape the grounds and find the nearest pub,” her colleague Colin Webb recalled.
Julia MacRae retired in 1996, telling friends that the industry had changed and that she wished to pursue other interests. Her lifelong passion for music had made her a devotee of the Wigmore Hall in London and she took over editing the venue’s inhouse magazine, Score, and oversaw its centenary book, The Wigmore Hall 1901-2001 – A Celebration. She joined the board in 1999, pursuing that role with energy and enthusiasm until failing health brought about her final retirement in 2017.
Despite her broad cultural hinterland, Julia MacRae confessed to having three cultural blind spots: Bach’s B minor Mass, Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Stevenson’s Treasure Island. A luminous performance at Christ Church, Spitalfields, converted her to the Bach; working with Anthony Browne on an edition of Alice opened her eyes to the delights of Wonderland; but Treasure Island remained a blind spot. “No fault of Robert Louis Stevenson,” she said. “But don’t ask me to read it again.”
Julia MacRae was unmarried.
Julia MacRae, born December 23 1934, died November 22 2023
