{{Short description|British publisher}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox person | honorific_prefix = The Honourable | name = Anthea Joseph | image = | caption = | birth_name = Anthea Esther Hodson | birth_date = 6 March 1924 | birth_place = London, England | death_date = {{death date and age|1981|1|23|1924|3|6|df=y}} | death_place = Old Basing, Hampshire, England | employer = | occupation = Publisher | spouse = {{plainlist| * {{marriage|Michael Joseph|1950|1958|reason=died}} * {{marriage|Macdonald Hastings|1963}} }} | children = 3 | parents = | other_names = Anthea Hastings }}
'''Anthea Esther Joseph''' ({{nee}} '''Hodson'''; 6 March 1924 – 23 January 1981), also known by her second married name '''Hastings''', was a British publisher.
== Life == Anthea Joseph was born in London as Anthea Esther Hodson, daughter of Charles and Susan Hodson. During the war, she was employed at the American Embassy.
She married the recently widowed publisher Michael Joseph in 1946 who had been her employer. For eight years she was mother to his four children and two of their own until her husband died.<ref name=odnb>Victor Morrison, ‘Joseph, Anthea Esther (1924–1981)’, rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31211, accessed 9 April 2017]</ref>
Joseph started to run the publishing business although her primary interest was not profit. She wanted to publish books even those that might not be financially profitable.<ref name=odnb/> It was she who phoned Alfred Wight to tell him that they would publish his books. Wight was not allowed to use his name and chose the name, James Herriot, for his popular books.<ref name="Wight2000">{{cite book|author=Jim Wight|title=The Real James Herriot: The Authorized Biography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TbhYS5-PS8QC&pg=PP372|date=26 October 2000|publisher=Penguin Books Limited|isbn=978-0-14-191653-8|page=372}}</ref> Authors that were also popular were Miss Read,<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/apr/12/miss-read Miss Read], ''The Guardian''. Retrieved 9 April 2017.</ref> James Baldwin, Stan Barstow, H. E. Bates, Dick Francis, Barry Hines, Julian Rathbone and Alun Richards. Joseph made sure that profits were set aside for other authors.<ref name=odnb/>
In 1962, Anthea Joseph became deputy chairman of the publishing business. She remarried the following year and had another daughter. Her new husband was Macdonald Hastings and her step-children now included Max Hastings. She became chairman in 1978 of Michael Joseph Ltd.<ref name=odnb/>
==Death== Joseph died on 23 January 1981, aged 56, of cancer, at Brown's Farm in Old Basing.<ref name=odnb/>
== References == {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Joseph, Anthea}} Category:1924 births Category:1981 deaths Category:20th-century English businesspeople Category:20th-century British publishers (people) Category:Daughters of life peers Category:Deaths from cancer in England Category:People from Old Basing Category:Publishers (people) from London Category:Women book publishers (people)