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26. George H. Doran
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26 / George H. Doran George H. Doran (1869–1956), Ameri can publisher and author, founded the New York–based publishing firm George H. Doran Company in 1908, which merged with Doubleday, Page, and Company in 1927 to form Doubleday, Doran, then the largest publishing house in the English- speaking world. Lewis worked for the Doran firm from the summer of 1914 until No vem ber 1915. Source: George H. Doran, Chronicles of Barabbas (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1935), 339–41. While Dawson68 was still in editorial charge, a tall, red- headed, lanky, and some what threadbare individual, who was the most fluent talker I have ever met, called upon me from a publisher’s advertising agency. He seemed to me much too intelligent to be a mere advertisement solicitor, in fact as a salesman he was practically a total loss, but as we talked from time to time, he revealed fine qualities of editorial judgment and publicity. He gave no evidence of financial success, indeed quite the contrary. One day I asked him how he would like an editorial job in my offi ce at a salary of $60 weekly. He almost embraced me and was at his editorial desk on the following morning. Thus began the publishing career of Sinclair Lewis. The change from Dawson to Lewis was revolutionary. Dawson, calm and serene, wrote out his briefs for or against a manuscript in beautiful Addisonian69 phrases. Lewis pounded out on a typewriter the crispest of Ameri can staccato opinion and criticism, literally reams of publicity stunts. He was a dynamo of energy and freshness of thought. After he had been with me a fortnight he came to me, and in the exuberance of his happiness volunteered that he was so contented that he was settled and located for life if I would have him. I was delighted, for while he was a bit too fast for my mental processes and thoroughly impractical in many ways, he had a commendable sound sense, indefatigable energy, and downright industry, which properly harnessed would go far to the making of a young publishing house. He had written and published two novels with Harper’s, and with the Dawson experience in mind, I talked with him on Part 3. Bohemia / 75 the wisdom of his commending authors to publish with me while he published with Harper’s; but that was a situation which time and loyalty would compose. Meanwhile his strident tones and his clattering machine gave an air of intense industry and activity to my hitherto quiet sedate establishment. He exuded enthusiasm , particularly to my salesman. Then there was a week when a somewhat Sabbath calm settled upon my offi ce. Lewis must be incubating. He was. Then came another week of renewed and still more impatient activity, and yet another week and a perfectly electrified Lewis came to me, brandishing a check received that morning from George Lorimer of the Saturday Evening Post for $500 for that silent week’s work on a short story. My $60 now advanced to $75 weekly could not compete with Lorimer’s $500. The lure of individual achievement was much greater than the quiet security of an editorial chair. The next week, Lewis had bought a flivver, and with wife Gracie was hitting the trail for the West and free dom and Free Air, shortly to be published by Harcourt, Brace. Even before Free Air was published Lewis told Alfred Harcourt, of the newly formed firm of Harcourt, Brace and Howe, that his books, himself, and such funds as he had accumulated were all at the disposal of Harcourt. After Free Air they published Main Street. I was beginning to learn that a publisher is not a genius to his editors. However, there was no change in the friendship between Lewis and me. From his present lofty heights, he every now and again descends upon me, and we fraternize. From out of the first 5,000 edition of Main Street, I had a copy, read it, and literally worshipped it. At that time the highest compliment I could pay Lewis and his book was that he had written The Old Wives’ Tale of America, that he had captured Ameri can types with the same meticulous accuracy as A[rnold] B[ennett] had delineated Five Towns and their people.70 And this was before 2,000 copies of Main Street of the ultimate 500,000 copies had been sold; not a genius, but a prophet. I took...