The Handheld Diaries by Kate Macdonald

217 1

Reviewed by Harriet, 4 Feb 2025

Christoph says, ‘Kate, you should really set up your own publishing house.’

Many of Shiny’s regular readers will have read the wonderful books published by Handheld Press between 2017 and 2024. There were 48 of them, and we’ve reviewed at least 27 here on Shiny, encompassing numerous forgotten authors in a range of genres from fiction, biography, and memoirs to tales of the supernatural. It was a sad day for readers when Handheld’s founder Kate Macdonald decided to call it to a halt, with her last volume, The Gulls Fly Inland by Sylvia Thompson appearing in July 2024. A few days later, when we interviewed her in our BookBuzz section, she revealed her intention of writing a memoir of those eventful seven years, to be called The Handheld Diaries. And now she has. But you won’t be able to go into a bookstore to buy this, at least not yet. Kate has embraced modern technology and is publishing the diaries by instalments on Substack, where you can find them at https://katemacdonald.substack.com. The first instalment went online on 4 January and free subscribers will receive two episodes a month. If you’re already on Substack, or decide to join for £5 a month, you’ll receive one episode each week, plus an extra post every month. But Kate kindly sent me the first nine episodes, which is about two months’ worth, and I’ve read them with great pleasure.

So why did a woman her early fifties, with no previous experience of publishing, suddenly decide to set up a publishing house? Well, she explains in her first entry:

24 March: I’m talking in a pub in Reading with my university colleagues. I research lost authors and forgotten fiction from the early twentieth century, and I’m aggrieved that nobody is republishing these books. They can’t be taught or bought or read or enjoyed or remembered, because they’re no longer in print. It’s infuriating, because these are fabulous stories, and no-one can read them any more. 

When her friend Christoph tells her she should open a publishing house, her first reaction is to scoff. However, despite a wide experience as a literary historian and university lecturer, she had applied for sixty jobs over the past five years and hadn’t got any of them. And she had a list in her head of out-of-print books she’d love to see republished. So she soon decided her friend was right – she needed to set up a publishing house. At first it was ‘a happy dream’, but with the backing of her husband, who promised to look after the finances, she decided to take the plunge. 

By the beginning of April she’s decided on the first book, The Runagates Club by John Buchan, a writer she knew well from years of research, and is considering genres and authors. But then come the practicalities, and she realises she needs a sales rep, an accountant and a business bank account. There are talks with printers, other publishers, translators, designers. In May she sets up a website. In June, Handheld is incorporated as a company, and she’s researching ISBN numbers, paying for trademark registration, and deciding what other books she wants to publish. In July she’s looking for authors of what she’s calling Handheld Modern, and reading Zelda Fitzgerald’s Save Me the Waltz, and writing about it in her reading diary

It’s very good. Maps onto the FSF [Scott Fitzgerald] legend and story, but from her perspective, which is significantly different from his, the tortured artist. It was clearly interfered with so MUCH by FSF and successive editors, and the FSF industry hates her. This has to be properly edited.

And so the months go by, as she meets and somehow manages to deal with a huge number of challenges until, on the 22nd of October, she collects the boxes of her first book, The Runagates Club, from the printer. So in seven months, Handheld Press has gone from a wild idea to a reality. This is where my sneak preview ends, but I’ll be following the journey on Substack. This really is a remarkable story, and it’s impossible not to be full of admiration for anyone who undertakes journey like this and completes it with such outstanding success. I’m writing this looking a bit sadly at my collection of beautiful Handheld books, but I have such happy memories of them. It would be hard to name my favourites but three I have really loved are The Kingdoms of Elfin by Sylvia Townsend Warner , Elizabeth von Arnim’s wonderful The Caravaners and Jane’s Country Year by Malcolm Saville. If you want to see more reviews, just do a search for Handheld on Shiny.

Harriet is one of the founders and a co-editor of Shiny, and does love a good reprint.

Kate Macdonald, The Handheld Diaries, https://katemacdonald.substack.com/

1 comment

  1. Forgotten fiction from the early 20th century which nobody is republishing – what??? Had she never encountered Virago or Persephone?
    There will always be some books waiting to be discovered, of course, but it seems to me that publishing is awash with people rediscovering & reprinting fiction from the period.
    I agree that Handheld was a lovely enterprise producing beautiful books at reasonable prices but no-one can reasonably suggest that they were the first house dedicated to republishing fiction if this kind.

Do tell us what you think - thank you.