Among the Literati

Lillian Hellman, whose play “The Children’s Hour” is definitely in the hit class, continues to receive the smiles of the very kind King (or is it Queen?) Fortune. Last year at this time she was making $50 a week as a scenario writer in Hollywood. The other day United Artists signed her to a contract calling for a salary of $1,500 each week….

Following close on the heels of Covici-Friede’s announcement of the impending publication of Herman Bernstein’s “The Truth About the Protocols of Zion” comes the word that the Bloch Publishing Company will issue “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” by Benjamin Segal, a German scholar….

Norman Klein, one of the town’s better newspapermen, who was, until a few weeks ago, writing a daily column for the New York Post, has once again quit the newspaper business to go with an advertising concern. Klein who also writes mystery stories did the same thing about five years ago but after two years the nostalgia for the smell of news print drove him back to the city room….

Viking Press is preparing to celebrate its tenth anniversary and a happy one it should be. This Jewish concern has been unusually successful in the publication of novels translated from German. A great deal of credit must go to Benjamin Huebsch who was responsible for the acquisition of these books. His connections with German authors and publishers was invaluable. Before the advent of Hitler, when American publishers went to Germany looking for new books, they would often notice in German publishers’ offices a few books set aside. Asking to see them the invariable reply would be: “We are holding these for Mr. Huebsch,” Mr. Huebsch, who once had a publishing business of his own, spent at least two months in Germany each year and was usually the guest of Stefan Zweig who kept him informed about the younger German writers.