Donald Bastian, who worked for a number of years as managing editor at Stoddart Publishing before moving on to create his own publishing companies, has died. He was 71.

He died on Oct. 3 at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, according to his official obituary.

Bastian worked as managing editor at Stoddart Publishing for 14 years, from 1988 until the firm ceased operations in 2002. While at Stoddart, he oversaw the editing of up to 75 books a year, including books by John Ralston Saul, Charles Taylor, and Carole Corbeil. Simon & Schuster executive editor Jim Gifford, who worked with Bastian at Stoddart for five years, remembers him as “a lovely and kind man,” who “could read people by reading only a few paragraphs of their work.”

“I owe Don a great deal for his mentorship and kindness during those years,” Gifford said by email.

ECW Press co-publisher Jack David, who first developed a working relationship with Bastian when ECW took on the printing of a book that the Stoddart editorial team had decided to skip (The Healthy Barmaid, by W. Gifford-Jones, first published in 1995), remembers Bastian as “the kindest guy you could ever imagine.” Bastian brought the book, written by a doctor with a nationally syndicated column, to David when Stoddart decided not to print it.

ECW Press went on to publish several other print-for-hire books with Bastian after he launched the eponymous Bastian Publishing Services in 2002. BPS Books was the company’s print-on-demand division.

“He never published crummy books – he never accepted them – and he didn’t deal with jerks, so we were happy to produce the books,” David said.

The projects dropped off a number of years ago.

Bastian rekindled his earlier passion for the French horn, playing with the Kindred Spirits Orchestra in Markham, Ontario, in his retirement. He leaves behind his wife, June, their two children, and four grandchildren, as well as his parents and siblings.