Newman Flower

Sir Walter Newman Flower (8 July 1879 – 12 March 1964) was an English publisher and author. He transformed the fortunes of the publishing house Cassell & Co, and later became its proprietor. As an author, he published studies of the composers George Frideric Handel, Franz Schubert and (as co-author) Arthur Sullivan. He also edited the million-word journals of Arnold Bennett for publication.

Life and career Flower was born at Fontmell Magna, Dorset, England. He was the eldest son of John Walter Flower. After schooling at the Whitgift School he entered the publishing trade in London at the age of 17.

Publishing Flower trained under Lord Northcliffe at the Harmsworth Press, after which he joined Cassell & Co in 1906. Cassell was at that time in the doldrums, but Flower built up a stable of magazine titles that grew to dominate the British magazine market for many years.

In 1927, Flower collaborated with Herbert Sullivan in a biography of the latter's uncle, Sir Arthur Sullivan, his Life and Letters. This too was well received at the time but also suffered later from critical disapproval for sanitising its subject by suppressing evidence of Sullivan's gambling and sexual liaisons. In 1928 Flower published a study of Franz Schubert, and in 1945 and 1950 he published two volumes of memoirs.

Personal life Flower was twice married, first in 1903 to Evelyne Readwin of Wells, Norfolk, with whom he had one son, Desmond Flower (1907–1997), the scholar and writer, who took over Cassell's after him; and second in 1943 to Bridget Downes of Coore, County Clare, Ireland. He died at his home, Tarrant Keynston House, near Blandford, Dorset, aged 84.