An Interview with Knopf Editor Ashbel Green

An Interview with Knopf Editor Ashbel Green Interviewen According to Alfred Knopf's own remarks, made in a talk in 1949, Alfred got into the business partly by getting to know good bookstores, including a model pubUsher in England, Martin Seeker. Then he came back to New York and finaUy got a job at Doubleday, Page, and Company, where he was paid eight dollars a week. When Doubleday sent him into the manufacturing department, his connection with books began. He got to correspond with Joseph Conrad, which was a really big thrill to him. He bought Conrad's correspondence from John Quinn and did his first book, partly to help Conrad, who was a lifelong gout sufferer and perpetually hard up. In other words, he became involved in publishing partly through his interest in and caring about authors. Do you think that describes the Knopf vision? Green: We certainly do care about authors, and we care about the quality of their work. Only three people have run this place in eighty-five years. Alfred and Blanche I count as one, and then Robert Gottiieb, and now Sonny Mehta. They are all very different from each other, but they have aU been committed to the care of authors and the quaUty of their work. Interviewen What about the idea that authors and pubUshers ought to be friends? Does that seem like the climate today? Green: Some authors and pubUshers are very much friends, and others are strictly businesslike. Certainly John Updike has been edited by Judith Jones for forty years, and they are very close. Interviewer: This brings up the perennial question about the relationships of editors, and it was one that concerned Knopf, too. Have you ever had to edit a book of fiction that you really, really disliked? The Missouri Review · 137 Green: I don't think Tve ever edited a book of fiction I disliked. I can say that I've edited a book of fiction that disappointed me. It sometimes happens that a writer will write a book that is not up to the level of his previous work. But if you believe in that writer you say all right, he or she's going to do better next time. Interviewer: Knopf believed that you should carry authors through bad patches and bad books. Green: He believed in publishing authors, not books. Although there were and are occasions—especially in nonfiction—where you're pubUshing one-of-a-kind books. Interviewer: At what point is an author important enough to a pubUshing house to be an author that they identify with? In a sense there's a lot of give there; some of these rejections are of books by authors Knopf had previously pubUshed. Green: I don't think in general such a relationship can happen after one book; it may take six books. Interviewer: Knopf's American repubUcation of Green Mansions, by W H. Hudson, was the big book, the early success, that aUowed him to continue. Then, in the '20s, Alfred and Blanche started going abroad every year looking for foreign titles. We notice in reading these reader reports that Knopf republished a lot of work from foreign publishers, particularly Britain. Seeker and Warburg, Heinemann and so forth. Has Knopf done that more than other publishing houses? Green: It's quite possible we did so in the early years. When Alfred and Blanche started this company they found it hard to attract American writers, so they went abroad for much of their list. I think the breakthrough among American writers was when they started to pubUsh Mencken and WUIa Cather in the late '10s, early '20s. Willa Cather left Houghton Mifflin to come to Alfred Knopf because she liked the way he produced and manufactured books. Interviewen He gave a lot of attention to the physical book. He went to Europe every year and looked at different paper for the end papers, etc. Green: He cared about the production values, and we try to continue in that vein. I would say that our list is more American now than it was 138 · The Missouri Review Ashbel Green in the '20s, '30s, '40s. This is essentiaUy...