Van Thal's grandfather was a distiller (King's Liqueur Whisky), and was a director of the theatre proprietors, Howard and Wyndham.
[1] After the Second World War, he founded the short-lived publishing house of Home and van Thal, with his friends Margaret Douglas-Home and Gwylim Fielden Hughes.
[3] Van Thal was a friend and publisher of the critic James Agate, whom he met in 1932.
Agate once described him as looking like "a sleek, well-groomed dormouse" out of a John Tenniel illustration of Alice in Wonderland, due to Bertie's tendency to dress in a dapper suit, bow tie, monocle, and black shiny shoes.
He was one of the first publishers to recognize the talent of Hermann Hesse, and reprinted novels by George Gissing and Theodore Hook.