When editors were gods

The next issue is always going to be better

"Automobile manufacturers, novelists, fathers and magazine editors all have one trait in common — an unrestrained enthusiasm for the future. A man involved in any one of these risky ventures is perfectly willing to talk to you about his current model (convertible, whodunit, elder child, June issue), but if you really want to see a spark in his eye and hear him burble with hopeful pride, ask him about his next effort — the 1956 car, the unpublished manuscript, the newborn baby, the July issue." — from an editor's note in Holiday magazine, June 1955.

The editor in hell, 1921

"I had a vision of editors in hell. Each sat surrounded by literary men whose souls he had damned and whose work he had disfigured. These put bits of tarred twine between his toes and set light to them. After that they tied him down and read aloud yards of the stuff he had accepted. And that was the worst torture of hell." — from an unsigned item in the Musical Courier magazine, June 30, 1921. The magazine credits The Triad, an Australian publication, as the original source of this charming sentiment.

The mystery of where editors come from, 1921

"Where do editors come from? I don't know. You might as well ask me where the sparrows go to when they die. I have known about 355 editors intimately, and I never met the father or mother of any one of them, and certainly never heard the grandfather of any one of them so much as referred to. I think they come out of the ground in some slum when there is a hard shower after a long spell of dry weather." — from an unsigned item in the Musical Courier magazine, June 30, 1921. The magazine credits The Triad, an Australian publication, as the original source.

Next time, the same writer imagines where editors go after death and what awaits them there. Hint: It isn't pleasant.

The typical editor's office, 1927

“Today your editor is rather inclined to look like an East Indian potentate surrounded by all the pomp and ceremony that hedge a king. He sits inviolate and immured within paneling of Mexican mahogany, under mellowing oil paintings and surrounded by onyx pillars and Persian rugs and rosewood desk tops, with an undersecretary who receives you in the waiting room upholstered with brown Morocco, and ushers you into the anteroom with probably a Louis Quinze motif predominating, where you are received by the great one’s personal lady confidante and eventually passed into the royal presence itself.” — an anonymous “author’s wife,” who seems to have accompanied her hubby on visits to editors, writing in The Saturday Evening Post in 1927.

By all accounts the author was Margaret Stringer, whose husband, Arthur Stringer, was a well-known novelist, poet, and magazine writer. That same year she published a widely praised book on the topic, “Confessions of an Author's Wife,” also anonymously.

An editor answers a common beef of rejected writers

"An experienced editor knows that it is not necessary to eat an entire ox to test the quality of the beef. A single paragraph anywhere in a manuscript gives him a clue to the quality of the whole." — Orison Swett Marden, editor of Success magazine, in his 1914 book "Hints for Young Writers."

Similar sentiments have been attributed to a number of famous editors (Edward Bok, George Horace Lorimer, etc.) though the food in question varies (apples, eggs, cheeses, etc.). Personally, I  like the "entire ox" version.

 

Although sometimes they'll buy you lunch

"The only advantage in meeting editors is to let them meet you, have a point of personal contact with you, and know whether their stories are written by a square guy or a hophead." — H. Bedford-Jones, writing in The Author & Journalist magazine, 1931.

Bedford-Jones (1887-1949) was a journalist, novelist, and short story writer, so prolific in his day that he was considered the "King of the Pulps."

 

The secret of success in magazine work (also circuses)

"A shrewd understanding of human nature, a real sympathy with it, is the secret of success in magazine work, as in running a department store, a church, or a circus." — James Eaton Tower, editor of Good Housekeeping magazine, writing on "Educated Women in Magazine Work," a chapter in the book "Vocations for the Trained Woman: Opportunities Other Than Teaching" (1910).

Tower was the ring master of Good Housekeeping from 1899 to 1913.

An editor's life in heaven

"In heaven, how pleasant an editor's life must be! No obituaries, no political ties, no book reviews, no advertisements. Ever angel will know by intuition what books to read. Athletics won't exist. On the whole — perhaps there won't be any need of editors in heaven — and that may be why so few of them here qualify themselves to go there." — William Roscoe Thayer in a 1911 letter.

Thayer (1859-1923) was an author and editor.

One writer on his fear of editors

"I know in my heart that editors are poor fish (because they often turn down manuscripts of mine that I know are superior to anything they ever saw before), but I fear them just as if they had real intelligence." — Ellis Parker Butler, in his 1923 book, "Ghosts What Ain't."

Butler (1869-1937) was a prolific and popular humorist in his day.

 

Henry Miller shares his uncensored opinion of editors

"Editors are anathema to me. I have never allowed any editor to do any editing of my work.... Magazine editors are the worst offenders. They say, 'Don't you think this paragraph would be better here instead of there?' And I say, 'No, I don't. Take it or leave it.'" — Henry Miller, author of the much-banned "Tropic of Cancer" and other books, in his 1971 autobiography, "My Life and Times."

Soul-searching for editors, 1910

"An editor's soul will usually disappear long before it leaves the body." — Frank Moore Colby, in his book "Constrained Attitudes" (1910).

Colby was a writer and college professor, not to mention an editor.

 

One successful freelancer's formula for dealing with editors

"There is a certain mathematics in dealing with editors. If you give an editor one idea for an article, he is going to reject it. If you give him ten ideas, he is going to be so overwhelmed by the bounty that he is going to reject all ten. But if you give him three ideas he is going to turn down two and accept one." — Rex Lardner, writing in the Saturday Review in 1971. Presumably the idea for that article was one of three he'd submitted to Norman Cousins or another editor there.

Lardner was a longtime author and magazine freelancer with a specialty in golf and other sports. His 1998 New York Times obituary noted that, "A man for whom writing came easy, Mr. Lardner worked out an agreeable regimen for himself. Getting up early to work out with weights in his basement (he believed in preparation), he would then play tennis, come home to type for a while before lunch and, perhaps after a nap, play some more tennis followed by more typing, dinner and still more typing."

He was also a nephew of the writer Ring Lardner, who once offered this advice for dealing with editors.