When Books Mattered, Part 2

Ernest Hemingway &
F. Scott Fitzgerald

     It's probably safe to say the days are over when a writer hit a dry (or particularly alcohol-fueled wet) spell & his editor put said writer on an allowance & supported him. Financially & physically. 

       
                  Maxwell Perkins did.


  It's also probably true that these days editors aren't much interested in single spaced manuscript pages that arrive by the crate load.

                 Maxwell Perkins was.

Thomas Wolfe from
Charles Scribner's Sons: An Illustrated Chronology

Charles Scribner's Sons: An Illustrated Chronology 

     Charles Scribner's Sons, publishers of Edith Wharton, Theodore Roosevelt, Henry James, J. M. Barrie, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ring Lardner, Jules Verne, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Mary Mapes Dodge, Howard Pyle, & about everybody else you've ever heard of, hired Maxwell Perkins in 1910.

     Scribner's~~perhaps all of publishing~~most famous editor joined the house about the time they launched their  Illustrated Classics series (☚click for Part 1).
     In his short, brilliant career, Perkins coddled, cajoled, encouraged, mentored & guided men & women as they gave us some of the most memorable settings, plots & characters of the twentieth century.

  ☟     ☟       A sampling        ☟     ☟

 

~~Which brings me to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings~~ 

orange groves, Cross Creek, guest rooms, 

her journey 

& mine

which I'll explore in Part 3 of

 When Books Mattered

In the meantime the full story of Maxwell Perkins awaits in 
A. Scott Berg's 

Princeton-thesis-cum-definitive-biography.

~~Do yourself a favor~~

Start with this renowned & beloved editor, 
then work your way through his clients,

one fascinating read at a time. 

“Just get it down on paper, and then we’ll see what to do with it.”

  

Maxwell Perkins