Peter Carson - Telegraph Born on October 3 1938, Peter Carson had an unusual background. His father, who was French, Swiss and Anglo-Irish, had fought on the Somme, winning an MC, and worked in the Foreign Office and as a barrister, but died when Peter was nine. His mother was a White Russian from a prosperous merchant family which had built a fortune trading on the Volga, but lost it in the Russian Revolution. Peter's mother fled alone to London, and brought up her children, Peter and Tatiana, in straitened circumstances. At home the family spoke Russian, French and English interchangeably, often in the same sentence. The early days at Penguin were leisurely. The offices in John Street, London, were above a pub which had unlimited opening hours owing to a cosy relationship between the publicans, the police and Penguin. Lunch hours could encompass the entire afternoon. Despite this, Carson published many books of lasting importance, including Robin Lane Fox's Alexander the Great and Hugh Brogan's History of the United States of America. The arrival of Peter Mayer changed the pace. Together they accepted the challenge of making the company a commercial success when it was facing bankruptcy while sustaining its enviable reputation for quality. Carson commissioned landmark books such as Donna Tartt's Secret History, Simon Schama's Citizens, and Roy Foster's revisionist Modern Ireland. Most of these were not books that arrived as finished manuscripts; Carson, one of the most creative editors of recent times, would decide that a book was wanted, research the subject exhaustively and then approach the best new author in the field and commission the book. Thus he was formative in the lives of many writers, journalists and academics. At the same time, he was able to see the potential in Shirley Conran's Lace, among many books which sold in huge quantities around the world. Carson trained and mentored an entire generation of editors who now occupy top posts in London publishing. Sometimes he fired them but, characteristically, remained close friends with almost all. With Mayer he acquired Rough Guides, the series of travel books founded by Mark Ellingham; created the Penguin 60s, the collection of mini-books celebrating the invention of the Penguin paperback 60 years earlier; brought the Viking hardback imprint to Britain; and recreated Allen Lane, the Penguin Press . He also revived the Penguin Classics . In 1997, at the age of 59, Carson was sacked from Penguin. Days before he left, the book trade was abuzz with gossip of a first novel he had bought from an unknown 23-year-old. He had paid so much money that rumour had it that he was getting his revenge on Penguin. But many critics now recognise what Carson saw first: that Zadie Smith's White Teeth is the most original novel to come out of England in the new millennium. A few months later Carson joined the young, independent publisher, Profile Books, where he added more extraordinary books to his roster of titles, among them Mary Beard's The Parthenon and Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town . Carson was also a distinguished translator. After leaving Penguin he translated five Chekhov plays and Turgenev's Fathers and Sons for Penguin Classics. The day before his death his wife Eleo Gordon had delivered the final proofs of his translation of Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Ilyich. Peter Carson is survived by his wife , herself a distinguished editor at Penguin, and their daughter . Peter Carson, born October 3 1938, died January 9 2013