Among the Literati

Horace Liveright, who was a “stormy petrel” in the publishing world, is preparing to tell all in a fat volume which Simon & Schuster threaten to publish at some future date. Manuel Komroff, the more-than-ordinarily successful novelist, will do the actual writing of the autobiography and the story is that they received an advance of $4,000. The whole thing is something of a family affair. When Dick Simon commenced his career in this intriguing book world, he worked for Liveright as a salesman when the firm was known as Boni & Liveright. Also working in the offices at that time was Manuel Komroff, who was in charge of manufacturing. It was Komroff’s job to supervise the actual making of the books. There was then only a faint suspicion that he would develop into a best-selling novelist. While at Liveright’s he did a translation of Marco Polo’s book of travels but no original work. Now that the trio is together big things are expected.

The autobiography of Liveright should be a document of considerable importance. It will be a history of American letter, with a small “1”, of the nineteen-twenties. Until the theatre and the stock market got him, Liveright was one of the outstanding publishers in the business. Among the authors he discovered and lost were Ernest Hemingway, Waldo Frank, Lewis Mumford, Ben Hecht, Ludwig Lewisohn and Emil Ludwig. He also published such authors as Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, Robinson Jeffers, Gertrude Atherton and Eugene O’Neill.

Ambition finally got him. He wanted to be a power in the theatrical world and for a time managed to make money even in that skittish field. He produced the play based on “An American Tragedy”, also “The Firebrand” and “Dracula”. These plays were successful but he finally ran into a series of flops which ate deeply into his capital. A position was offered to him by a moving picture company which he accepted. He resigned from the publishing house and went west but he was no longer a young man and soon returned without a job. He has been in retirement ever since.

Alfred Knopf seems to have picked the winner of the season in Jules Romain’s “Men of Good Will”, a translation from the French. It is the first volume in a twelve-volume series. More than one publisher turned it down before Mr. Knopf accepted it. The rejecting gentlemen said that they recognized the book’s merit but feared it would lose money. . . . Did you know that David Sarnoff, president of R.C.A., first tasted fame while a wireless telegrapher—he received the first flashes of the sinking of the Titanic and kept in touch with the ship until she went down. . . .