Perkins, Maxwell E. 1884-1947

EDITOR AND PUBLISHER

Editor of Geniuses.

Maxwell Perkins was the most renowned editor to practice his craft at an American publishing house. It has been remarked that his career was based on a quest for an American Tolstoy, whose War and Peace he regarded as the supreme work of fiction. Perkins's reputation is permanently linked with those of three geniuses he published at Scribners: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe. The 1920s were a golden decade for American literature; brilliant writers and great publishers reinforced each other. Boni & Liveright had a stimulating list of titles; but no house matched the distinction of Charles Scribner's Sons, which entered the 1920s as a conservative firm and became the imprint of exciting young fiction writers.

Allegiance to Talent.

Though raised in New Jersey, Maxwell Perkins came from New England stock and was Harvard-educated. His Yankee...

[The entire page is 838 words long]

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