[4] Calder was a friend of Samuel Beckett, becoming the main publisher of his prose-texts in Britain after the success of Waiting for Godot on the London stage in 1955–56.
[7] The championing of freedom of speech led to Calder's involvement in a number of prosecutions for obscenity, including one in 1966 for publishing Hubert Selby Jr's Last Exit to Brooklyn.
[8] While the initial trial resulted in a guilty verdict, the case was won on appeal, and effectively ended literary censorship in Britain.
[10] The last novelist to be signed to the company by John Calder personally was Carole Morin whose Penniless in Park Lane[11] he published in 2001.
[citation needed] The imprint continues to publish Howard Barker, Tim Waterstone, and other figures of literature both past and present.
[citation needed] In April 2007, Calder sold his business to independent publishers Alma Books/Oneworld Classics; the imprint retained his name,[14] while the rights to the non-theatrical work of Beckett were acquired by Faber.
[5] These innovative events, intended to draw together writers from all over the world, were arguably a forerunner of the Edinburgh Book Festival, which was not founded for another twenty years.
Calder married Sheila Colvin,[15] who had been a friend and partner from his earliest involvement with the arts, and the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh.