Toby Blackwell, who started a row about whether the family's publishing company should be sold, has backed down from confrontation.

Mr Blackwell, the great-grandson of the founder of the Oxford bookshop, was reportedly intending to use the bookselling business, Blackwell Ltd -- which owns a 9.3 per cent share in the publishing company -- to precipitate a sale.

His spokesman, David Wynne Morgan, said: "The crisis has been postponed, not averted. Toby has agreed to wait until the financial advisers have reported."

Toby's son Philip, chief executive of Blackwell Ltd, said he supported his cousin Nigel, and the decision taken by the board of Blackwell Publishing, not to sell the firm now but to prepare it for a stock market flotation in about four years.

Philip Blackwell said: "I have received an undertaking from Toby that it has never been his intention to table a motion at a board meeting of Blackwell Limited to utilise the Blackwell Limited shareholding in Blackwell Publishing to change its board to precipitate a sale of Blackwell Publishing."

Toby's nephew Nigel owns 42.3 per cent of Blackwell Publishing, while Toby holds 30.1 per cent and Philip about 5.3 per cent. Blackwell Ltd owns 9.3 per cent, so could have the casting vote.