A Farewell to Jackie Collins

“Jackie Collins was originally published by Collins in hardback in the 1970s and 80s and Sonny Mehta, then publisher at Pan Books, acquired her for the Pan paperback imprint. She was one of the authors that helped Pan become synonymous with commercial brand author publishing. She moved to be published by Macmillan in hardcover and Pan in paperback in the late 80s or early 90s. And finally she moved her publishing to Simon & Schuster 15 years ago, though we continued to publish her backlist until 2011.

I worked with her directly for some eleven years, on her backlist. She was an extraordinary woman who oozed glamour and glitz and who epitomised what many people believe to be the dazzling, blockbuster author's lifestyle. She was the female Harold Robbins, without the chaos. The whole enterprise was underpinned by a steely knowledge of her market and her readership and a complete openness of heart and mind to anyone. She held firm views about her book jacket artwork and her marketing, but she worked like a dog to make it all happen, and I admired her massively for that. Every meeting with her was like a scene from one of her novels! It feels like the 1980s have died . . . ”

Jeremy Trevathan, Publisher, Pan Macmillan