British publisher, born on the 18th of May 1863 at Surbiton and educated at home. He spent his early years in the study of music until, realizing that he could not hope to be in the front rank of musicians, he started a publishing business. Amongst his earliest publications were Whistler’s Gentle Art of Making Enemies (1890) and Heinemann’s International Library, edited by Edmund Gosse. In 1897 he opened the series of Short Histories of the Literatures of the World with Gilbert Murray’s Ancient Greek Literature. Heinemann’s most conspicuous service to literature probably lies in his introduction to the English reading public of such foreign writers as Maeterlinck, Ibsen, Björnson, Tolstoy, Couperus and Valera. He also published three plays by his own pen—The First Step (1895); Summer Moths (1898) and War (1901). Since 1913 he had been president of the National Booksellers’ Society. He died suddenly in London on the 5th of October 1920.
