Ernest Hecht

Ernest Hecht OBE (21 September 1929 – 13 February 2018) was a British publisher, producer, and philanthropist. In 1951, he founded Souvenir Press Ltd, one of the very few remaining independently owned major publishing houses in Great Britain. In 2003 he set up the Ernest Hecht Charitable Foundation. Described by The Bookseller as "one of a number of émigrés who changed the face of British publishing after the Second World War alongside George Weidenfeld, Paul Hamlyn and André Deutsch", Hecht has been called "the last of the great publishers". He was awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to Publishing and Charity in June 2015. In August 2015, he was honoured by the President of Brazil with the Order of Rio Branco, which was presented to Hecht at a ceremony by the Brazilian Ambassador in London.