When editors were gods

The famous editor who changed his name

William Chon was born in Chicago on this day (August 31) in 1907. Concerned that his name sounded "too Chinese," he later changed it to William Shawn. As Shawn, he spent more than 50 years at The New Yorker, 35 of them as the magazine's editor. The young Chon also figures in a widely told but apparently apocryphal story involving the famous child murderers Leopold and Loeb.

A Cosmo editor who was truly scattered

The ashes of Ray Long, former editor of Cosmopolitan, were scattered at sea on this day (August 30) in 1935. One of the most famous and lavishly paid magazine editors of his day, Long tried and failed to reinvent himself as a screenwriter and scenario editor in Hollywood and shot himself to death at age 57.

How to compliment an editor

"You are a true gentleman — not an editor!" — William James, psychologist, philosopher, and brother of the novelist Henry James, offering a compliment to Bliss Perry, editor of The Atlantic Monthly, 1905, as recounted in Perry's 1935 memoir, "And Gladly Teach" (Houghton Mifflin). Coincidentally, William James died 100 years ago last Thursday (August 26).

Felix Dennis's secret of success

What is the secret of your success?

"There are no secrets—just a long climb up the greasy pole. It's terrific fun, but when you reach the top, you discover there's nothing much of interest there." — Felix Dennis, magazine impresario (Maxim, The Week, etc.) and poet, interviewed in yesterday's Financial Times. His hybrid memoir/self-help book, "How to Get Rich," was published by Portfolio in 2006. 

 

A National Lampoon editor's unfunny ending

It was on this day (August 27) in 1980 that Douglas Kenney, co-founder and first editor of the National Lampoon and later a co-writer of the movie "Animal House" and producer of "Caddyshack," died after falling off a cliff in Hawaii. He was believed to be 33.

Kenney was not the first prominent editor to fall to his death. Among others who either fell or jumped: Laird Shields Goldsborough of Time magazine, in 1950, and Margaret Case of Vogue, in 1971.

H. L. Mencken's advice to would-be magazine editors

"I note what you say about your aspiration to edit a magazine. I am sending you by this mail a six-chambered revolver. Load it and fire every one into your head. You will thank me after you get to Hell..." — H. L. Mencken in a letter to author William Saroyan, quoted in Terry Teachout's 2002 Mencken biography, "The Skeptic." 

(On the other hand, H. Allen Smith writes in "Low Man Rides Again" [1973] that Mencken once told him his magazine editing days were "probably the most interesting period of his life." Incidentally, and way off topic, I know, here's Smith's chili recipe.)

The tragic end of Vogue's Margaret Case

It was on this day (August 25) in 1971 that Margaret Case, recently forced out as an editor at Vogue, jumped to her death from her Park Avenue apartment building. In her memoir "D.V.," Vogue's Diana Vreeland recalled that Case had failed to take management's hints that her editorial services were no longer required, so, "One day she was at her desk, which she'd had for forty or fifty years, and some moving men came and said they had to take her desk away. She said, 'But it's my desk. It's got all my things in it.' Well, they took her desk away and dumped everything in it out." 

Several other books, including Grace Mirabella's memoir, "In and Out of Vogue," and Eleanor Dwight's Vreeland biography, allude to illness as a possible motive for Case's suicide. She was 79.

John Cheever's definition of a good editor

"My definition of a good editor is a man I think charming, who sends me large checks, praises my work, my physical beauty, and my sexual prowess, and who has a stranglehold on the publisher and the bank." — John Cheever, in The Paris Review Interviews.

Vogue legend Diana Vreeland on the importance of meetings

"I never have a meeting and never attend a meeting and wouldn't know what to do with a meeting." — Diana Vreeland, editor in chief of Vogue, in her 1984 memoir "D.V."

The fashion editor who gave Vogue "pizzazz"

Diana Vreeland, a legendary editor of Vogue, died in New York City on this day (August 22) in 1989. Among other accomplishments, she was reportedly the inspiration for the flamboyant fashion editor in the 1957 movie "Funny Face" and inventor or least popularizer of the word "pizzazz." In her 1984 memoir "D.V.," she remarked that, "I think part of my success as an editor came from never worrying about a fact, a cause, an atmosphere. It was me — projecting to the public."

Tomorrow, Diana Vreeland offers her opinion on meetings ...

The most influential children's magazine editor ever

It was on this day (August 21) in 1905 that Mary Mapes Dodge creator and editor of St. Nicholas, a hugely popular children's magazine in its era, died at age 74. Dodge's magazine gave a start to countless young writers, including F. Scott Fitzgerald and Eudora Welty. She is probably best remembered today as an author herself, for her book "Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates."

The magazine, according to Webster

"The expectation of failure is connected with the very word Magazine." — Noah Webster, famed dictionary author and editor of the short-lived American Magazine, 1788.