BOOKS AND WRITERS
/N American parlance an " editor " can be either an individual responsible for the contents and regular issue of a periodical or a member of the editorial staff of a firm of book-publishers. Maxwell Perkins was an " editor " in the latter sense, so that the volume of his letters just issued by the eminent New York firm of Charles Scribner's Sons and entitled Editor to Author, is concerned exclusively with book-publishing, and has nothing to do with the editing of magazines or newspapers.* Perkins joined Scribner's editorial department in 1914, and from 1927 to the date of his death in 1947 was editor-in-chief. In this capacity he performed the various, subtle and arduous duties which, over here, are usually the responsibility of one of the directors of a publishing firm. He was not a " reader " in the accepted sense, yet he read continually ; it was not his function to arrange terms of publication and instruct the contract department accordingly, yet, as the man most closely in touch with Scribner-authors-to-be or already-in-being, his advice on terms—as to the desirability of some special concession or, con- versely, as to the necessity to call a halt in publisher's surrender to author's or agent's exigence—carried the greatest possible weight.
The literary judgement of a man in Perkins' position has to be tempered with commercial sense ; his consciousness of talent, how- . ever obscured by unpractised, meretricious or prejudiced handling, must always be alert ; his patience and sensitivity when dealing with individual writers, whose moods, being artists' moods, are unpredictable, should be enduring. It is one thing to build a list on a purely aesthetic basis, disdaining sales prospects as a secondary consideration and the public's responsibility anyway ; it is another to maintain a- standard of quality, yet to compromise sufficiently with contemporary taste (book-sellers' taste as well as readers')—at worst to get your firm its money back, at best to turn out a real seller. As for patience, one moment of exasperation due to anothei's unreason or to sudden fatigue at the end of a hard day can destroy weeks of careful diplomacy. In these and other aspects of an editor's job Perkins excelled ; and it is because the majority of the letters printed in. this memorial volume demonstrate his tireless industry, his devotion to letters, his self-effacement and his skill in— without offence—criticising and suggesting alterations in work dear to an author's heart, that Editor to Author is nearly a major addition to.the literature of publishing.
But, alas, only nearly—owing to the unsatisfactory manner in which, apart from a sensible introduction, the editing of the book has been carried out. There are many points at which the reader longs for an author's answer to a letter from Perkins or for the text of material referred to, or merely to know what happened next. For example, how did the Dreiser-Liveright conflict develop ? What was the " Eastman-Hemingway fight " ? What was the actual wording of the eight-line dedication to Perkins finally inserted in Thomas Wolfe's novel, Of Time and The River, which dedication Perkins in his modesty would, 'had he seen it in time, have asked to be replaced by a simple " To Maxwell Perkins " ? What did Wolfe reply to the gentle and charming letter which Perkins wrote him in November, 1936 ? Similarly, the corpus of letters dealing with books unfamiliar to English readers has, in the absence of editorial explanation, little or no point. The moment Perkins is dealing with a book we know—e.g., The Great Gatsby—his com- ments spring to life. Could not something approaching this vitalisa- tion have been achieved elsewhere ?
These are in themselves justifiable queries, though Mr. Wheelock might fairly reply that his book is not intended for non-Americans, and that Americans will require no gloss beyond what is provided. But there are failings, judging by international standards of bio- graphical apparatus, of which readers anywhere have the right to complain. I pass over the innumerable brief footnotes—many of them repetitions—which identify obvious personalities, record un- necessary publication dates, and pepper the pages with uninformative interruptions. I pass over, as disputable, the unwisdom of a chrono-
logical arrangement which breaks the continuity of important correspondence by the interpolation of what are little more than readers' reports on specific manuscripts, manipulated in a manner familiar to most publishers so as to serve as polite rejections.
Impossible, however, to ignore the want of perspective, the apparent indifference to the relative significance of this and that group of letters. During Perkins' decades of devoted and un- obtrusive service as midwife to talent he achieved two major triumphs ; he discovered, guided and launched into fame F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe. It may be thought nowadays that these authors are dated and were in their time over-praised. The opinion, however obedient to present-day fashion, is irrelevant to the astonishing success scored by Perkins on their behalf as a publisher and at the time when he scored it. There is a sequence
of letters to each of these men—a sequence of great interest as throwing light on the mentality of brilliant unstable genius, as showing how unfailingly Perkins gave needed support to Fitzgerald without appearing to do so, how inexhaustible was his patience and profound his sympathy with the violent tormented creature who was Thomas Wolfe. Yet no attempt is made to stress these sequences, nor is there any biographical annotation—no calendar of incidents culminating in the death-dates—to help us to visualise what Perkins did for two outstanding writers.
How different they were! Fitzgerald was a civilised, hectic, un- stable charmer, not a spoiled child so much as a child spoiled. From him Perkins could rely on considered and malleable response to criticism or suggestion, if Fitzgerald were in the mood—or in a fit state—to respond at all. Wolfe, on the other hand, was a savage tangle of diffidence, suspicion and, when the climax came, of un- grateful brutality. His sensitivity to criticism was pathological. Night after night Perkins sat at his side, striving with untiring tact to convince this turbulent genius that, of the vast accumulation of words which constituted the first draft of any Wolfe novel, these and these were better away. Mostly he succeeded ; and the novel found success in its turn. But there came a time when, from the dark recesses of Wolfe's self-distrust, beat up an ugly wish to hurt the man who loved and had served him best. The severance from Scribner's, after cruel letters and mounting disputes over royalties and corrections charges, came near to breaking Perkins' heart. But Perkins cared more for writing, and for this the most cherished of his writer-pupils, than for his own due of gratitude. Temperately he bore with his tormentor, and was at the end rewarded when, almost from a death-bed, Wolfe wrote the letter of recantation printed on page 141 of this book.
English publishers, with a view to re-living what have surely been experiences of their own, are recommended to read Perkins' demon- stration to Fitzgerald (page 21) of the disadvantages of rush- publication by Christmas. The Christmas season has a fascination for authors—as it well may, provided they realise that, to be pro- perly equipped for (say) November publication, a book must be ready for travellers, advance-publicity and so forth, no later than August. To return proofs in late September or early October and demand publication in December is to make the worst of all worlds. On page 138 is a dissertation on the utility and otherwise of Press advertising, crammed with unpalatable good sense. Finally, lest the publisher-reader should by now be feeling over-virtuous, let him read the nine pages (286-294) of sound but carefully tentative criticism of a Marcia Davenport novel. This sort of constructive analysis is editorial publishing on the highest level ; but not many of the craft have the concentration, the endurance and the devotion to duty which amply justify Mr. Wheelock in terming Max Perkins a " great editor," whose influence on letters will long survive.
MICHAEL SADLE1R.
* Editor to Author: The Letters of Maxwell E. Perkins. Edited by John Hall Wheelock. (Scribners, London: 25s.).
Previous page
