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illustrators, etc.
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From: LeonardSMa at aol.com <LeonardSMa>
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1998 16:31:25 EDT
UN was under special pressure in working with EB White, at least at the beginning. He was already one of the Harper trade (ie adult) department's star authors; in her dealings with him UN could be sure that Cass Canfield and others in the highest positions at Harper would hear about any dissatisfaction on his part. Not that he was difficult; I think he wasn't difficult at all, and fairly soon he and UN were on a first-name basis and getting a kick out of each other. NonetheIess, I do think that White's status as a Harper author and literary figure accounted in part for the deferential tone of the early correspondence, and the extent to which UN consulted with him about the illustrations. Also in the background was EB White's wife, Katharine, who acted as her husband's business manager (while serving as full time fiction editor at The New Yorker; KSW also by the way reviewed children's books for the magazine for several years; unofficially, she ranked as second or third in command under Harold Ross). Katharine quite often played the bad cop and made sure that attention and deference were paid. She was also a brilliant woman and may in fact have been the first to call UN's attention to Garth Williams as a potential illustrator of Stuart Little. In general, I think that as UN gained in confidence after her first few years as editor, she developed keen instincts for matching an artist with a text and felt comfortable making those decisions without first seeking the author's approval. The pattern, typically, was to start with a manuscript, and then search for an illustrator whose art was appropriate to it. She looked for a quality of feeling in an artist's work. I think the emotional content mattered more to her than technical virtuosity--the tenderness for instance of Clement Hurd's paintings for Goodnight Moon. UN didn't discourage writers--as I think is sometimes the practice nowadays--from being in direct contact with the illustrators of their books. In fact, she introduced many Harper authors and illustrators to each other. Ruth Krauss and Maurice Sendak, I believe, did the layouts together, with scissors and paste, for A Hole Is to Dig. Later, MS turned to Ruth Krauss's husband, Crockett Johnson, as well as to UN, for advice as he worked through to the text of Where the Wild Things Are. Leonard Marcus (LeonardSMa at aol.com)
Received on Mon 17 Aug 1998 03:31:25 PM CDT
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1998 16:31:25 EDT
UN was under special pressure in working with EB White, at least at the beginning. He was already one of the Harper trade (ie adult) department's star authors; in her dealings with him UN could be sure that Cass Canfield and others in the highest positions at Harper would hear about any dissatisfaction on his part. Not that he was difficult; I think he wasn't difficult at all, and fairly soon he and UN were on a first-name basis and getting a kick out of each other. NonetheIess, I do think that White's status as a Harper author and literary figure accounted in part for the deferential tone of the early correspondence, and the extent to which UN consulted with him about the illustrations. Also in the background was EB White's wife, Katharine, who acted as her husband's business manager (while serving as full time fiction editor at The New Yorker; KSW also by the way reviewed children's books for the magazine for several years; unofficially, she ranked as second or third in command under Harold Ross). Katharine quite often played the bad cop and made sure that attention and deference were paid. She was also a brilliant woman and may in fact have been the first to call UN's attention to Garth Williams as a potential illustrator of Stuart Little. In general, I think that as UN gained in confidence after her first few years as editor, she developed keen instincts for matching an artist with a text and felt comfortable making those decisions without first seeking the author's approval. The pattern, typically, was to start with a manuscript, and then search for an illustrator whose art was appropriate to it. She looked for a quality of feeling in an artist's work. I think the emotional content mattered more to her than technical virtuosity--the tenderness for instance of Clement Hurd's paintings for Goodnight Moon. UN didn't discourage writers--as I think is sometimes the practice nowadays--from being in direct contact with the illustrators of their books. In fact, she introduced many Harper authors and illustrators to each other. Ruth Krauss and Maurice Sendak, I believe, did the layouts together, with scissors and paste, for A Hole Is to Dig. Later, MS turned to Ruth Krauss's husband, Crockett Johnson, as well as to UN, for advice as he worked through to the text of Where the Wild Things Are. Leonard Marcus (LeonardSMa at aol.com)
Received on Mon 17 Aug 1998 03:31:25 PM CDT
