When editors were gods

The mixed-up world of magazine-making, 1897

“Magazine-making is not like an ordinary business. It is so mixed up with humanity that after a time the editor comes to learn that other people’s affairs are his. The effect of even the slightest word scattered among a million and a half readers is so pronounced that he comes to weigh with utmost care every sentence and page, for which he must stand responsible.”  — Cosmopolitan magazine, 1897. The article, which bears no byline, has been attributed to John Brisben Walker, a serial entrepreneur and then some, who was the magazine’s owner and editor at the time.

Walker sold Cosmopolitan to William Randolph Hearst in 1905 and left magazine-making behind him.

Walker died in 1931. Cosmopolitan, now a very different magazine, lives on.

The art of the veiled command

"If he is a wise editor, he will wish to hold his hand as much as possible; he will think twice before he asks the contributor to change this or correct that; he will leave him as much to himself as he can. The young contributor, on his part, will do well to realize this and to receive all editorial suggestions, which are veiled commands in most cases, as meekly and as imaginatively as possible." — William Dean Howells, in "The Editor's Relations With the Young Contributor," an article for the Youth's Companion, reprinted in his 1902 collection "Literature and Life."

In his introduction to the book, Howells writes that he intended the article "to shed a kindly light from my experience in both seats upon the too-often and too-needlessly embittered souls of literary beginners." Although best remembered as a novelist today, Howells was also a magazine editor, heading the Atlantic Monthly from 1871 to 1881.

At left, the author apparently relaxing at home.

The (money-mad) modern magazine editor, 1923

“The modern magazine editor knows what kind of slush will pander to the depraved and sensual tastes of a shallow-souled and pleasure-mad constituency. The modern editor is a psychologist and a success-seeking business man. He does not regard it as his task in life, as did the editors of the past, to mould public opinion into pure, strong, and noble form. He has one goal. That goal is MONEY.” — Grace and Truth magazine, 1923.

Grace and Truth, edited by Clifton L. Fowler and published in Denver, called itself “a Bible study magazine for earnest men and women everywhere.”

R.I.P. Condé Nast

Condé Nast, the man, not the company, died 77 years ago yesterday (September 19, 1942) at age 69.

Although Nast was primarily a publisher and gave his celebrated editors (such as Edna Woolman Chase at Vogue and Frank Crowninshield at Vanity Fair) relatively free rein, he also seems to have had keen editorial instincts, making him if not an editor then at least an honorary one. 

Nast is the subject of a recently released biography, "Condé Nast: The Man and His Empire," by Susan Ronald.

Magazine editor joke, 1918

Advertiser: I should like to have this placed next to pure reading matter.

Modern Magazine Editor: Oh, but we don't print that kind of stories anymore.

— a joke, apparently from Judge magazine, reprinted in the July 1918 issue of the Inland Printer.

 

The two greatest kindnesses an editor can show

"To Ellery Sedgwick with infinite gratitude for the two greatest kindnesses that can be shown by an editor: giving advice when it is wanted and withholding it when it is not." — biographer Gamaliel Bradford's dedication in his 1916 book "Union Portraits."

Ellery Sedgwick was the longtime editor and owner of the Atlantic Monthly.

Advice to editors: Get out

"A man cannot be a successful editor who sits forever in his office." — Lincoln Steffens, quoting advice given him by the editor S. S. McClure.

The famously energetic McClure, who traveled widely and probably didn't sit much even when he was in the office, is the subject of a forthcoming book, "Citizen Reporters: S. S. McClure, Ida Tarbell, and the Magazine That Rewrote America," by Stephanie Gorton.  

One editor's gutsy secret of success

“A cast-iron stomach, the digestion of a horse.” — Robert H. Davis, editor of Munsey’s magazine, when asked the secret of being a successful editor.

Posing the question was William C. Lengel, who wrote about Davis for a 1920 issue of the trade publication Advertising and Selling. Lengel himself went on to become a successful editor, at the Smart Set, Cosmopolitan, and other magazines.

For an example of what Davis’s stomach was able to tolerate, here is his recipe for Cream Sauce à la Worcestershire, which he is said to have invented.

The ideal editor: versatile but not too deep

“The editor of a magazine should be, above all, versatile. He need not necessarily be deep. In fact, if he is too deep for his readers, as was Dr. Brownson*, his magazine will not satisfy his constituency. The people will murmur—they may read the magazine as a kind of imposed literary penance, but they will always read under protest.” — Thomas O’Hagan, in his 1911 book “Chats by the Fireside: A Study in Life, Art and Literature."

O’Hagan was Canadian-born poet and editor. 

* Orestes Augustus Brownson edited the Boston Quarterly Review from 1838 to 1842 and Brownson’s Quarterly Review from 1844 to 1875. The great magazine historian Frank Luther Mott offered a more generous view of Brownson, writing of the two magazines that, “Few periodicals have ever represented so adequately the activities of a diverse and energetic mind… His was an intellect sui generis, inquiring, fearless, combative, subtle, and [here's that word again] versatile. He never stood still.” 

A Quick take on editing by instinct

“He prints the thing which pleases him. He knows what pleases him pleases his audience. In a field in which the reason fails, he is guided by something which in his domain is far more trustworthy than reason—instinct…. There is an infallible recipe for printing what the people want. It is to secure an editor with universal sympathies, and leave the matter to him.” — Herbert Quick, in an article on “How to Print What the People Want,” 1915.

Quick was an editor and writer with magazines including the Country Gentleman and the Saturday Evening Post, as well as a novelist focusing on his native Iowa.

The hierarchy of editorial headwear

“On a magazine, the editors wear hats so that they can be easily distinguished from assistant editors who do not wear hats. By this standard, of course, secretaries should have receding hairlines and file clerks be quite bald…and we may come to that yet.” — Helen Vogt Van Slyke, then beauty editor at Glamour magazine, writing in 1947.

Van Slyke went on to a successful career as an executive in the fashion and fragrance industries. Then, in her 50s, she returned to writing and became a bestselling novelist. She died in 1979.

Edna Ferber’s imaginary magazine empire

In her 1940 short story “The Barn Cuts Off the View,” Edna Ferber tells of a character employed by the “Big Three magazines”—a group that may sound vaguely familiar: “There was the solid one published for the Big Business Boys at a dollar a copy. It was called Power. There was the newsy one for clubwomen and for men who say, ‘I don’t get time to read.’ Its name was Now. The third, for people who couldn’t read at all, evidently, was made up entirely of illustrations. It was called See.”

Ferber, whose story was originally published in Cosmopolitan, is not the only fiction writer to conjure up her own imaginary magazine empire.

Novelist Rona Jaffe did it in her 1958 bestseller, “The Best of Everything,” as did Kenneth Fearing in 1946’s “The Big Clock.”