John Calder began his publishing company John Calder (Publishers) Limited with the intention of publishing good quality general literature. In his first years in business he published European classics in translation, material relating to the arts (particularly opera), and avante-garde literary fiction and drama. As time progressed he showed that he was prepared to publish controversial and experimental writing. He published most of the work of Samuel Beckett, who became a life-long friend, and previously banned work of Henry Miller and William Burroughs. The firm faced and survived a number of obscenity charges, and a major trial for libel, but continued to publish material dealing with issues of civil liberties and exposes of the establishment, some commissioned by Calder, and much of it uncommercial. Calder claimed to have published nineteen Nobel literary prize-winning books; the Calder website (http://www.calderpublications.com/aboutus.html) is headed 'Publishers of the most significant literature of the twentieth century'.
The firm was titled Calder and Boyars betwen 1921 and 1924, reflecting a partnership at that time with Marion Boyars. Resisting mergers and takeovers, the firm John Calder survived as an independent publishing company into the twenty-first century, although with a much reduced output. John Calder opened the Calder Bookshop in London in 2002.
