The Scribner's editor who published F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe — the man behind more of the American 1920s than any writer in it.
Maxwell Perkins is the reason a great deal of American literature exists in the form it does. He worked for one publishing house for thirty-seven years, published almost nothing under his own name, and is the only book editor most readers can name. Between 1919 and his death in 1947 he signed or edited F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, Ring Lardner, Erskine Caldwell, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and Martha Gellhorn. Four of those names carried the decade these pages begin with.[1]
He was born William Maxwell Evarts Perkins in New York City on 20 September 1884, a grandson of William M. Evarts, who had defended Andrew Johnson at his impeachment trial and served as Secretary of State. He went to St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, then to Harvard, graduating in 1907 — an economics major who spent his time on literature, studying under Charles Townsend Copeland. He joined Charles Scribner's Sons in 1910 as an advertising manager, married Louise Saunders the same year, and moved to the editorial staff in 1914. They had five daughters. He commuted from Connecticut, wore a hat indoors, and was, by every account, almost pathologically reticent.[1]
His first fight was the one that made him. In 1919 he took on a rejected manuscript by an unknown twenty-two-year-old and pushed it past Scribner's older men, who did not want it. The book was This Side of Paradise, it appeared in 1920, and it made F. Scott Fitzgerald famous within a week. Perkins edited everything Fitzgerald wrote after that, including The Great Gatsby in 1925, whose shape owes a great deal to his letters — he read the draft, told Fitzgerald that Gatsby himself was vague, and got a rewrite that fixed it.
Fitzgerald then did him the largest favour of his career. In the autumn of 1924 he wrote to Perkins about a young American in Paris he had not yet met, misspelling the name with two m's, and urged him to look him up. The pursuit of Ernest Hemingway took two years and was settled by a stunt: Hemingway owed Boni & Liveright a book, wrote The Torrents of Spring as a parody of their own star author, and they refused it exactly as intended. The contract dissolved, and Perkins got both the parody and The Sun Also Rises in 1926. The two men wrote to each other for twenty-two years; the correspondence is published whole as The Only Thing That Counts.
Hemingway cost him a particular kind of trouble, because Perkins had to carry the obscenity arguments to Charles Scribner himself. There is a story, and it is worth labelling as one, that on reading The Sun Also Rises he jotted the offending words on his desk calendar under Things To Do Today, and that Scribner walked in, read the list, and told him he must be exhausted. It is repeated as a fanciful tale rather than as documented fact, and the detail that makes it plausible is real enough: Perkins did not swear. His strongest recorded expression was "My God," and he did not use it often. The fights themselves were real too, and he had them again over A Farewell to Arms in 1929, much of which reached print with dashes where the words had been.
The third of the great relationships was the hardest. Thomas Wolfe delivered a manuscript called O Lost that ran past a thousand pages, and Perkins cut it into Look Homeward, Angel, published in 1929. The second book, longer still, he cut into Of Time and the River in 1935. Wolfe was grateful and then he was not. In 1936 the critic Bernard DeVoto wrote in the Saturday Review that the novels had been hacked into shape by Perkins and the Scribner assembly line, which was the accusation Wolfe most feared, and he left for Harper & Brothers to prove he could do it alone. He died of miliary tuberculosis in 1938, at thirty-seven. The last letter he wrote, from his sickbed before he lost consciousness, was to Perkins.
He kept working through the 1940s. He published Martha Gellhorn's first collection of short fiction, The Heart of Another, in 1941, and he approached a young veteran named James Jones in 1945 about a novel that became From Here to Eternity. In 1947 an unsolicited typescript arrived from South Africa by way of two readers in California, and Perkins accepted it at once. Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country was published on 1 February 1948 and became a worldwide book; its editor never saw it. He had been taken to hospital in Stamford with a fever on 2 June 1947 and died there of pneumonia on 17 June, at sixty-two, as Scribner's editorial director and a vice president of the firm.
The profession he effectively invented has kept his name because he wrote so much of himself into letters. A. Scott Berg's Max Perkins: Editor of Genius, which won the National Book Award in 1978, was built from that correspondence, and it is the reason a book editor is a figure the public can picture at all. What the letters mostly show is not brilliance but patience — a man telling Fitzgerald that a character had not come clear, telling Hemingway which words would survive the front office, and telling Wolfe, at enormous length, what could go.
The relationship that defined Perkins's reputation was also the one that ended badly. Thomas Wolfe had come to depend on him completely, and dedicated Of Time and the River to him in 1935, then turned on the dependence.
Critics had begun saying that Wolfe's books were partly Perkins's, and that without the editing there would be no novels. Wolfe could not live with the charge. He sent Perkins a formal letter of severance in November 1936, and a very long private one in late 1937 as he left Scribner's for Harper. Both were published only after his death.
Thomas Wolfe died in September 1938, at thirty-seven, of tuberculosis of the brain. The last thing he wrote was a note to Perkins from his hospital bed in Seattle. It recalled a July afternoon years earlier, when the two of them had gone up on top of a building in New York and looked at the city. Perkins was named his executor.
Perkins is remembered for F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, and leaving out the writers he edited alongside them distorts the record. From 1930 he also edited Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, who had moved to an orange grove at Cross Creek in central Florida and was writing about the people around her.
Perkins read Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings's early stories, told her to stop imitating and write what was in front of her, and worked with her for seventeen years. The Yearling, published in 1938 about a boy and an orphaned fawn in the Florida scrub, sold enormously and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1939.
The correspondence between Perkins and Rawlings runs to hundreds of letters, notes and wires across those seventeen years. It is among the fullest records anywhere of how he actually worked: reading closely, asking questions rather than issuing instructions, and pressing a writer towards their own material rather than his taste.
Perkins wore a hat more or less permanently: at his desk, at home, and at the dinner table. The explanation usually offered is that he was hard of hearing and the brim pushed his ears forward; another, which he seems to have enjoyed, is that it made him look as though he were about to leave.
He was hard of hearing, did almost no business by telephone, and wrote rather than talked wherever he could. That habit is the reason so much of his working method survives, and it contributed to a reputation for silence.
He kept working through the 1940s while his health failed. Maxwell Perkins was taken ill with pneumonia at his home in New Canaan, Connecticut, on 16 June 1947, and died the next day at Stamford Hospital, at sixty-two. He had five daughters and had spent thirty-seven years at one firm.
Born in New York City on 20 September, a grandson of the statesman William M. Evarts.
Graduates from Harvard, having studied literature under Charles Townsend Copeland.
Joins Charles Scribner's Sons as an advertising manager and marries Louise Saunders.
Moves to the editorial staff at Scribner's, where he stays for the rest of his life.
Takes on a twice-rejected manuscript by an unknown F. Scott Fitzgerald and forces it past the firm's older men.
This Side of Paradise is published and makes Fitzgerald famous. Perkins will edit everything he writes after it.
Publishes Ring Lardner's How To Write Short Stories. Fitzgerald writes urging him to find a young American in Paris named Hemingway, misspelling the name.
The Great Gatsby is published, rewritten in part on the strength of his letters about the vagueness of Gatsby himself.
Lands Ernest Hemingway after The Torrents of Spring breaks his Boni & Liveright contract, and publishes The Sun Also Rises in October.
Cuts Thomas Wolfe's thousand-page O Lost into Look Homeward, Angel, and argues A Farewell to Arms past the firm's objections to its language.
Begins editing Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, telling her to stop imitating and write about the Florida scrub around her. They work together for seventeen years.
Cuts Wolfe's second manuscript into Of Time and the River.
Bernard DeVoto accuses him in print of manufacturing Wolfe's novels. Wolfe leaves Scribner's for Harper & Brothers.
Thomas Wolfe sends him a formal letter of severance in November.
Wolfe writes him a very long private letter and leaves Scribner's for Harper.
Wolfe dies at thirty-seven. His last letter, written before he lost consciousness, is to Perkins.
The Yearling is published, and wins the Pulitzer Prize the following year.
Wolfe dies in September at thirty-seven. His last letter, from a hospital bed in Seattle, is to Perkins, who is named his executor.
Publishes Martha Gellhorn's first collection of short fiction, The Heart of Another.
Accepts Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country from an unsolicited typescript. Taken to hospital in Stamford on 2 June, he dies of pneumonia on 17 June, aged sixty-two.
Is taken ill with pneumonia at his home in New Canaan on 16 June and dies the next day at Stamford Hospital, at sixty-two.
Collaborated with
Perkins signed Hemingway for Scribner's in 1926 after The Torrents of Spring broke his Boni & Liveright contract, and edited him for the rest of his life. Their correspondence runs from 1925 to Perkins's death in 1947 and is published in full as The Only Thing That Counts.
Collaborated with
Perkins pushed the rejected manuscript that became This Side of Paradise past Scribner's older men in 1919, and edited everything Fitzgerald wrote afterwards. His letters about the vagueness of Gatsby himself prompted the rewrite that produced The Great Gatsby in 1925.
Collaborated with
Perkins edited Gellhorn at Scribner's, publishing her first collection of short fiction, The Heart of Another, in 1941. She and Hemingway, married that same year, shared a publishing house and an editor.
Collaborated with · 1928–1937
Perkins cut roughly sixty thousand words from the manuscript called O Lost and published it as Look Homeward, Angel in 1929, then spent two years shaping Of Time and the River. In 1936 Bernard DeVoto wrote in the Saturday Review that the first novel had been made into a book by its editor; Wolfe left Scribner's for Harper & Brothers in 1937. His last letter, written from a Seattle hospital on 12 August 1938, was to Perkins.
Worked for · 1910–1947
Perkins joined the advertising department in 1910, moved to the editorial staff in 1914, and stayed until he died in 1947, by then the firm's editorial director and a vice president. Thirty-seven years, one employer.
An American book editor at Charles Scribner's Sons from 1910 until his death in 1947, and the most famous editor in publishing history. He signed or edited F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, Ring Lardner, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and Martha Gellhorn.
Three things, mostly by letter. He found writers nobody had published and argued them past a conservative firm; he told them what was not working in a draft, which is how The Great Gatsby got its rewrite; and he cut. Thomas Wolfe's first manuscript ran past a thousand pages and reached print as Look Homeward, Angel.
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote to him in the autumn of 1924 recommending a young American in Paris he had not yet met, misspelling the name with two m's. Hemingway was contractually tied to Boni & Liveright until he wrote The Torrents of Spring, a parody of their own star author Sherwood Anderson, which they refused as he intended. The contract dissolved and Perkins signed him, publishing The Sun Also Rises in 1926.
The story is told often and labelled a fanciful one by the sources that tell it, so it should not be taken as documented. The version that circulates has him listing the objectionable words in The Sun Also Rises under Things To Do Today, and Charles Scribner reading the list and remarking that he must be exhausted. What is well attested is the underlying situation: Perkins repeatedly defended Hemingway's language to his employer, and did not use it himself.
Because the editing became an accusation. Thomas Wolfe accepted deep cuts on his first two novels, then the critic Bernard DeVoto wrote in 1936 that the books had been assembled by Perkins and the Scribner's production line rather than written by their author. Wolfe moved to Harper & Brothers to prove otherwise. He died two years later, and his final letter was to Perkins.
Of pneumonia, in Stamford, Connecticut, on 17 June 1947, aged sixty-two. He had been admitted to hospital with a fever on 2 June. He was Scribner's editorial director and a vice president of the firm at the time, and had recently accepted Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country, which was published the following February.
A. Scott Berg's Max Perkins: Editor of Genius, published in 1978, which won the National Book Award and was built on unprecedented access to his correspondence. His letters with Hemingway are published in full as The Only Thing That Counts.
Because critics had begun saying that Wolfe's novels were partly Perkins's work, and that without the editing there would be no books. Wolfe could not live with the charge. He sent Perkins a formal letter of severance in November 1936 and a very long private one in late 1937, and left Scribner's for Harper. Both were published only after his death. He died the following September, and his last letter was to Perkins, who was named his executor.
Many others, and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is the largest omission. He began editing her in 1930, told her to write about the Florida scrub she had moved to rather than imitate other writers, and worked with her for seventeen years. The Yearling, published in 1938, won the Pulitzer Prize.
He wore it more or less permanently — at his desk, at home, at the dinner table. The explanation usually offered is that he was hard of hearing and the brim pushed his ears forward. Another, which he seems to have enjoyed, is that it made him look about to leave.
On 17 June 1947, at Stamford Hospital in Connecticut, of pneumonia, aged sixty-two. He had been taken ill at his home in New Canaan the day before. He had spent thirty-seven years at Scribner's and had five daughters.
Collaborated with
Perkins signed Hemingway for Scribner's in 1926 after The Torrents of Spring broke his Boni & Liveright contract, and edited him for the rest of his life. Their correspondence runs from 1925 to Perkins's death in 1947 and is published in full as The Only Thing That Counts.
Collaborated with
Perkins pushed the rejected manuscript that became This Side of Paradise past Scribner's older men in 1919, and edited everything Fitzgerald wrote afterwards. His letters about the vagueness of Gatsby himself prompted the rewrite that produced The Great Gatsby in 1925.
Collaborated with
Perkins edited Gellhorn at Scribner's, publishing her first collection of short fiction, The Heart of Another, in 1941. She and Hemingway, married that same year, shared a publishing house and an editor.
Collaborated with · 1928–1937
Perkins cut roughly sixty thousand words from the manuscript called O Lost and published it as Look Homeward, Angel in 1929, then spent two years shaping Of Time and the River. In 1936 Bernard DeVoto wrote in the Saturday Review that the first novel had been made into a book by its editor; Wolfe left Scribner's for Harper & Brothers in 1937. His last letter, written from a Seattle hospital on 12 August 1938, was to Perkins.
Worked for · 1910–1947
Perkins joined the advertising department in 1910, moved to the editorial staff in 1914, and stayed until he died in 1947, by then the firm's editorial director and a vice president. Thirty-seven years, one employer.
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