#max perkins

[macrolit]

Literary history that happened on 2 January

[princetonarchives]

Excerpt of a letter from F. Scott FItzgerald, Class of 1917, to his editor, Max Perkins, at Charles Scribner’s Sons, December 20, 1924:

Hotel des Princes, Piazza di Spague, Rome.

Dear Max,

I'm a bit (not very--not dangerously) stewed tonight & I'll probably write you a long letter. We're living in a small, unfashionable but most comfortable hotel at $525.00 a month including tips, meals, etc. Rome does not particularly interest me but it's a big year here, and early in the spring  we're going to Paris. There's no use telling you my plans because they're usually just about as unsuccessful as to work as a religious prognosticater's [sic] are as to the End of the World. Iv'e got a new novel to write--title and all, that'll take about a year. Meanwhile, I don't want to start it until this is out & meanwhile I"ll do short stories for money (I now get $2000.00 a story but I hate worse than hell to do them) and there's the never dying lure of another play. 

Now! Thanks enormously for making up the $5000.00. I know I don't technically deserve it considering I've had $3000.00 or $4000.00 for as long as I can remember. But since you force it on me (inexorable [or is it exorable] joke) I will accept it. I hope to Christ you get 10 times it back on Gatsby--and I think perhaps you will.

Archives of Charles Scribner’s Sons (C0101); Manuscripts Division (Firestone Library), Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

[wedgeantill]

Genius (2016)

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Stayed in the house all day. Cold and grey. Mary [daughter-in-law] and I played cards. In the evening went to dine with Max Perkins [above right] and Tom Wolfe [above left] at Cherio’s—in 53rd St. We had good dinner and good drinks. Wolfe a huge man 6 ft 4—very alive and sensitive—too easily hurt. He is one of the few real ones.

—Sherwood Anderson, Diary, April 4, 1937

[fangirlwithasweettooth]

Ma chérie please inform me on who Max Perkins is s’il te plaît et merci ☺️

Of course mon ange!

(Prepare for a giant rant I’m so sorry)

OKAY SO

Max Perkins lived from September 20, 1884 to June 17, 1947. He was an incredible book editor, and (though hardly anyone knows his name) discovered F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe, just to name a few. He was unlike most editors of his time, in that he actively sought out promising young writers, his first big find happening in 1919 with F. Scott Fitzgerald. Despite Fitzgerald’s first novel initially being rejected by the publishing house Perkins worked at, he worked with Fitzgerald to revise it until it was accepted. It was actually through Fitzgerald that Perkins met Ernest Hemingway, eventually publishing his first novel (The Sun Also Rises) in 1926. Perkins was known for the incredible attention he gave each of his authors’ books. He’s actually the one who made “old sport” such a big thing in The Great Gatsby (and he’s the reason it’s called “The Great Gatsby”)— he suggested Fitzgerald extensively use that phrase to add to Gatsby’s personality and make him a bit less of a mystery to the reader. Perkins had great relationships with most, of not all, of the authors he worked with. He wasn’t just an editor; he was a confidante, counselor, moneylender, critic, friend. Some of the quotes from him that I really love (from the book we read about him in my Intro to Publishing class) are:

• “An editor does not add to a book. At best he serves as a handmaiden to an author. Don’t ever get to feeling too important about yourself, because an editor at most releases energy. He creates nothing.“

• “A writers best work comes entirely from himself”

• “... an editor can only get so much out of an author as the author has in him.”

• “Before an author destroys the natural qualities of his writing— that’s when an editor has to step in. But not a moment sooner.”

And yeah, he’s basically who I want to be when I grow up lol.

(The biography we read about him is called Max Perkins: Editor of Genius by A. Scott Berg if anyone’s interested)

[sarah-maclean-completist]

@sarahmaclean: MAKE IT: “Alive from beginning to end.”

[westeggediting]

L'editor e la mancanza cronica di tempo...

Si diceva che Perkins avesse acconsentito a pubblicare il primo romanzo di Ernest Hemingway, E il sole sorge ancora, alla cieca, e che poi quando il manoscritto era arrivato aveva dovuto lottare per tenersi il lavoro perché il libro era scritto in un linguaggio colorito. Un'altra storia che Perkins adorava era quella del suo scontro con l'editore ultraconservatore per cui lavorava, Charles Scribner, su certe parolacce contenute nel secondo romanzo di Hemingway, Addio alle armi. Si diceva che Perkins si fosse annotato le parole problematiche di cui voleva discutere - “cacare”, “fottere” e “pisciare” - sul suo calendario da tavolo, senza far caso al titoletto: Cose da fare oggi. Sembra che il vecchio Scribner scoprì la lista e fece notare a Perkins che se doveva ricordare a se stesso di fare certe cose era in un grosso guaio. —  Andrew Scott Berg, Max Perkins L'editor dei geni Elliot Edizioni

https://www.westegg.it/i-nostri-corsi.html illustrazione: Franco Matticchio

[poisstradane]

Genius(2016) Max Perkins(1/)