Penguin NZ publisher Geoff Walker pays tribute to Richard King.
The following eulogy was delieverd by Geoff at Richard's funeral on Monday.For full coverage of funeral scroll back to yesterday's posting.
Richard’s publishing career actually began when he was a student, helping lay out the pages of Craccum, the Auckland student newspaper.
He became a freelance book editor, working for companies such as Longman Paul, Associated Book Publishers, later to become Reed Methuen, Pacific, and Moa.
When Penguin started developing its local publishing in the mid-eighties, Richard became a key member of the publishing team. And it was at this time while marking up a set of book galleys that he decided he could do this typesetting thing himself. He bought an Osborne computer, pre-Windows, and taught himself how to be a typesetter: how to format pages, lay out type, take in corrections.
So Richard the editor became a typesetter as well. And then a book designer. And with Felicity being a brilliant proofreader, Ellerrton Road, Mt.Eden became a publishing one-stop shop, particularly for us at Penguin. Richard was a key member of our team.
Some of our finest books at Penguin at that time were Richard’s babies.
The imprint page for the two big James Belich works of NZ history, Making Peoples and
Paradise Reforged carry the credit line “Editing and book design by Richard King”. On the imprint page of Anne Salmond’s wonderful book Two Worlds you’ll find “Designed and produced by Richard King”. He edited and designed Michael King’s book on the Moriori. It’s a proud legacy.
Richard brilliantly combined his editorial and design skills. He was great at dealing with authors such as Belich & Salmond because they shared the same commitment to perfection and clarity and getting it absolutely right. In matters of grammar he wasa traditionalist, of course. He had passionate views on the traditional use of commas, as you’d expect, and would fight those battles to the end.
We also used to have a lot of fun. At one pint for some weeks Richard and I communicated solely by faxed cartoons to which we’d added speech bubbles. I’ve spent an hour at the weekend re-reading them. We also used to hold impromptu editorial meetings in cheap Italian restaurants or at Ellerton Road with a huge pot of Great Barrier Island mussels.
It’s also not widely known that Richard was a published author himself. He played such a major role in assembling the big Men in White published by Moa, an encyclopedic history of NZ cricket, that he has co-author status. There it is on the jacket, By Don Neely and Richard King.
Richard was, as many of you will know, a cricket fanatic and an enthusiastic member of the Auckland publishers cricket team on Saturday afternoons.
The high point in his cricketing career came one Satuday afternoon when he kept wickets to the legendary Denis Lillee. Lillee was visiting Auckland on a book promotion tour. Our game was stopped while television news filmed him bowling – with Richard King behind the stumps.
I’d also like to say in more personal terms that Richard was a dear friend with whom I shared a great deal. He was the only person I ever met who shared as wide a range of interests as myself – from literature and the Oxford comma to who won the Super 14 game last night.I miss him terribly, and my heart goes out to Gillian and to Richard's children.
He became a freelance book editor, working for companies such as Longman Paul, Associated Book Publishers, later to become Reed Methuen, Pacific, and Moa.
When Penguin started developing its local publishing in the mid-eighties, Richard became a key member of the publishing team. And it was at this time while marking up a set of book galleys that he decided he could do this typesetting thing himself. He bought an Osborne computer, pre-Windows, and taught himself how to be a typesetter: how to format pages, lay out type, take in corrections.
So Richard the editor became a typesetter as well. And then a book designer. And with Felicity being a brilliant proofreader, Ellerrton Road, Mt.Eden became a publishing one-stop shop, particularly for us at Penguin. Richard was a key member of our team.
Some of our finest books at Penguin at that time were Richard’s babies.
The imprint page for the two big James Belich works of NZ history, Making Peoples and
Paradise Reforged carry the credit line “Editing and book design by Richard King”. On the imprint page of Anne Salmond’s wonderful book Two Worlds you’ll find “Designed and produced by Richard King”. He edited and designed Michael King’s book on the Moriori. It’s a proud legacy.
Richard brilliantly combined his editorial and design skills. He was great at dealing with authors such as Belich & Salmond because they shared the same commitment to perfection and clarity and getting it absolutely right. In matters of grammar he wasa traditionalist, of course. He had passionate views on the traditional use of commas, as you’d expect, and would fight those battles to the end.
We also used to have a lot of fun. At one pint for some weeks Richard and I communicated solely by faxed cartoons to which we’d added speech bubbles. I’ve spent an hour at the weekend re-reading them. We also used to hold impromptu editorial meetings in cheap Italian restaurants or at Ellerton Road with a huge pot of Great Barrier Island mussels.
It’s also not widely known that Richard was a published author himself. He played such a major role in assembling the big Men in White published by Moa, an encyclopedic history of NZ cricket, that he has co-author status. There it is on the jacket, By Don Neely and Richard King.
Richard was, as many of you will know, a cricket fanatic and an enthusiastic member of the Auckland publishers cricket team on Saturday afternoons.
The high point in his cricketing career came one Satuday afternoon when he kept wickets to the legendary Denis Lillee. Lillee was visiting Auckland on a book promotion tour. Our game was stopped while television news filmed him bowling – with Richard King behind the stumps.
I’d also like to say in more personal terms that Richard was a dear friend with whom I shared a great deal. He was the only person I ever met who shared as wide a range of interests as myself – from literature and the Oxford comma to who won the Super 14 game last night.I miss him terribly, and my heart goes out to Gillian and to Richard's children.
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