When editors were gods

Robert Gottlieb on the 'noble' profession of editing

"I don’t like writing. I hate writing, I never wanted to be a writer. I think it's an ignoble profession. As opposed to editing, which is a noble profession because it's a service profession. Whom are you serving when you write? Yourself, your ego. No, no, no. Editing is a noble profession." — Robert Gottlieb, in his acceptance speech on receiving the inaugural Editorial Excellence Award from the Biographers International Organization in 2014.

(I was there and believe he was at least sort of kidding.)

Gottlieb, who died this past June, was best-known as a book editor, especially for the acclaimed biographies of Robert A. Caro, but also did a stint as editor of The New Yorker, from 1987 to 1992.

R.I.P. Julia Scully, 1929-2023

Julia Scully, longtime editor of Modern Photography magazine, died on July 18, according to this recently published New York Times obituary.

The magazine has been defunct since 1989 and is probably largely forgotten today. Readers of the time, however, and that includes me, may remember it as the most magical of the several magazines that catered to serious amateur photographers, introducing us not only to the latest gear but to photographers who were doing something interesting.

Weirdly, the relatively lengthy Wikipedia entry for Modern Photography magazine doesn't even mention her—as of today (August 6, 2023), at least. 

Julia Scully was 94.

Mark Twain draws a distinction betwen editors and God Almighty

"Any editor to whom I submit my manuscripts has an undisputed right to delete anything to which he objects, but God Almighty Himself has no right to put words in my mouth that I never used!" — an irate Mark Twain complaining to the editors of St. Nicholas magazine about their handling of material from his book "Tom Sawyer Abroad."

The quote comes from illustrator Dan Beard's 1939 autobiography, "Hardly a Man Is Now Alive." Beard writes that he wasn't present for Twain's outburst but heard about it from several staffers.