PDFs may have replaced galley proofs, but Hemingway's editor still has lessons to teach the literary world
In the fast lane … Maxwell Perkins established his literary reputation in New York. Photograph: Philip Gendreau/ Bettmann/Corbis
Max Perkins: Editor of Genius is reissued this month, 35 years after it was first published – but what can the man who told Ernest Hemingway to "tone it down" and lived to tell the tale teach us about publishing today?
Random House founder Bennett Cerf described a lunch in 1925 with Theodore Dreiser, author of An American Tragedy, and Horace Liveright, the book's first publisher. Liveright had struck a deal with Dreiser: if he sold film rights, Dreiser would receive a one-off payment of $50,000; if Liveright got more than that, the difference would be split 50/50. Liveright later handed Dreiser a cheque for $67,500 over lunch – only for Dreiser to storm out of the restaurant, accusing his publisher of ripping him off. "Bennett," Liveright told Cerf as he recalled the lunch, "let this be a lesson to you. Every author is a son of a bitch."
It was a very different time; a time of great publishers such as Liveright, Cerf and Charles Scribner's Sons, and a time of great writers, too. If F Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe were the greatest novelists of their time, then Max Perkins – editorial director at Scribner, friend, personal banker and more to all three – was surely the greatest editor. Wolfe even said as much, before falling out with Perkins and the firm due to, shall we say, "artistic differences".
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Random House founder Bennett Cerf described a lunch in 1925 with Theodore Dreiser, author of An American Tragedy, and Horace Liveright, the book's first publisher. Liveright had struck a deal with Dreiser: if he sold film rights, Dreiser would receive a one-off payment of $50,000; if Liveright got more than that, the difference would be split 50/50. Liveright later handed Dreiser a cheque for $67,500 over lunch – only for Dreiser to storm out of the restaurant, accusing his publisher of ripping him off. "Bennett," Liveright told Cerf as he recalled the lunch, "let this be a lesson to you. Every author is a son of a bitch."It was a very different time; a time of great publishers such as Liveright, Cerf and Charles Scribner's Sons, and a time of great writers, too. If F Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe were the greatest novelists of their time, then Max Perkins – editorial director at Scribner, friend, personal banker and more to all three – was surely the greatest editor. Wolfe even said as much, before falling out with Perkins and the firm due to, shall we say, "artistic differences".
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