It is more than 30 years since Robert Maxwell’s body was found at sea, but many remain fascinated by him. A new biography, Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell, by John Preston, published last year, brings the number of books about the late publishing magnate to at least 12. A three-part BBC series, House of Maxwell, was broadcast this month.
The conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell, the youngest of Maxwell’s seven surviving children, for sex trafficking provided the spur for the BBC programmes, but much of the series was about the father and his extraordinary life as a Czech refugee, a decorated British army officer and — as discovered after his death — a pilferer of his company’s pension funds.
A few years before he died, I interviewed Maxwell in his vast office at the Mirror, the newspaper he owned. Maxwell and his public relations people had been selling the idea that the Maxwell group had grown out of its entrepreneurial adolescence. Maxwell was now delegating responsibilities to his managers, giving him the space to take a strategic view.