Dennis Wren came to Australia in 1966 to manage Heinemann's Australian office and soon became a champion of local authors. This eventually led to tension between Wren and Heinneman's London headquarters, however, and in 1970 he resigned in order to start his own publishing house.
Despite a number of significant successes, particularly with his children's list, Wren Publishing began to struggle by the mid-1970s. Chester Eagle, a Heinneman author who followed Wren out of loyalty, records that he 'didn't have enough of the marketing machinery that commercial publishers need, and was operating on borrowed money' ('Who Could'). The firm eventually collapsed when a legal complication led to the pulping of one of its titles.
Eagle, whose controversial book Four Faces, Wobbly Mirror (1976) was one of the company's last titles to be published further records:
[The book] was in production when I became aware that Dennis was in trouble. He'd put a lot of money into [it and hoped it] would be a succés de scandale. His printer, however, was one of his financial backers, and someone at the printery was worried about possible libel actions. The printers refused to release the book but still charged Wren Publishing for the job. Dennis haggled, but the end was in sight. Would my book get out in time? Only just. I had the satisfaction of seeing it in a Katoomba bookshop while I was on holiday with my wife and children, then the Wren business folded, and the book disappeared without further trace.
Source: 'Four Faces'
