----------------------------- [excerpt from Max Perkins: Editor of Genius, by A. Scott Berg] ------------------------ ...Innumerable legends had sprung up about him, most of them rooted in truth. Everyone in [the] class had heard at least one breathless version of how Perkins had discovered F. Scott Fitzgerald; or of how Scott's wife, Zelda, at the wheel of Scott's automobile, had once driven the editor into Long Island Sound; or of how Perkins had made Scribners lend Fitzgerald many thousands of dollars and had rescued him from his breakdown.
It was said that Perkins had agreed to publish Ernest Hemingway's first novel, The Sun Also Rises, sight unseen, then had to fight to keep his job when the manuscript arrived because it contained off-color language.
Another favorite Perkins story concerned his confrontation with his ultraconservative publisher, Charles Scribner, over the four-letter words in Hemingway's second novel, A Farewell to Arms. Perkins was said to have jotted the troublesome words he wanted to discuss -- shit, fuck, and piss -- on his desk calendar, without regard to the calendar's heading: "Things to Do Today."
Old Scribner purportedly noticed the list and remarked to Perkins that he was in great trouble if he needed to remind himself to do those things. ------------------------------------- [end / excerpt]
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