by Bennett Cerf
News beyond that, there is none. I’m managing to keep busy and not yet too bored but I wish to hell I could get out of here. Give my love to Bob and Pauline, Saxe, Lew & the gang. I wish I were with you.
When are you going away this summer? You’re a sucker if you don’t while business is good and you’re able to.
Love to Thrup and Chris! Be good—
Love,
Donald
June 22, 1943
Dear Don:
Last night we sent you four dummies that may mark the beginning of a profitable and long-lived venture for us. The idea is an Illustrated Modern Library. Harry Abrams will be the art director of the project. In fact, the whole idea is his in the first place. I think he was pounding away at it even before he went into the Army, if I am not mistaken. Somebody is going to step into this field, and we might as well stake out a claim before it is too late. I am particularly wary on the subject of George Macy. His Heritage books are being marked at lower and lower prices every year. We certainly don’t want any of his slimy hot breath on our necks!
The present plan is to bring out four or five of these Illustrated Modern Library editions for Christmas. We’ll take the paper from our regular Modern Library stock and print token editions just so that we can be first in the field. Each book will be boxed. Some of them will be illustrated in color and some in black and white. The price will be either $1.25 or $1.45. The art work for each book will average us about $1000.00. After this expense is written off, the books will actually only cost us between 8¢ and 10¢ a copy more than the regular Modern Library. I am very anxious to hear your reaction to the idea. I think the dummies we’ve sent you are simply magnificent. They bowled over everybody who has seen them.
There is a lot of to-do about what titles we should select to start the series, but Confucius, Brothers Karamazov and Pickwick Papers will certainly be three of them. The other two will be selected from Don Quixote, Emerson, Longfellow, Candide, and Whitman. I am very anxious to have your opinion of all this.
Harry will be in on some sort of a royalty arrangement, possibly 3¢ a copy. He thinks he is going to make $20,000.00 a year out of it before many years have gone by, and I hope to hell he is right.
It is hotter than blazes around here today. Bob Haas went off to Vermont with Merle and the Schermans yesterday, so Jezebel and I have the Inner Sanctum entirely to ourselves today, and you can imagine what is going on. It’s Jezebel’s fourteenth wedding anniversary tomorrow. That guy Friedman is certainly a bear for punishment. (Jezebel says it is too hot to even protest against all these statements. That’ll give you a rough idea of the weather.)
Cecil Brown is about to embark on a complete tour of the country and his next book will be a report on America. It might be big, and then again it might not. We can afford to lose a few thousand shekels on him, if necessary. Leane Zugsmith and Carl Randau have written a knockout mystery story which we’ll probably sign up in the course of the next few days. We’ve tied up the INS man who is going to the Aleutians for a complete story of the war in that sector. LIFE WITH FATHER is ours for the Modern Library. It will be published in February 1944. That’s all the news worth telling on a day like this.
How about calling up some night to say hello?
Love,
Bennett
June 26, 1943
Dear Bennett—
Your letter about the illustrated editions and the dummies arrived here this morning. I think they are really beautiful and I think the idea is fine. Harry and I had talked about the idea many times and I certainly think it’s well worth doing some experimental work with them. Two words of advice on them. Nine point type is too small to be of enduring value in these books. Our printing is not careful enough to gamble setting even the larger books (longer works) in anything smaller than 9½ Fairfield and Fairfield is one helluva clear type. And look out for that inner margin of only ½ inch. These books are small and quite tightly bound and we don’t want to make them hard to read. After all they are not really deluxe collectors items but books that will be used and we have to be careful of the reading quality as well as the looks. I’m most enthusiastic about these dummies and if we can keep our costs within reason at present inflated prices, we can use really good paper after the war and turn out some gems.
While we are making money and paying such high taxes have you and Bob thought of going into the college text field and possibly getting some men interested in that. I know it’s lousy now but this might be the time to make a deal with someone. Just a dream but not a new one.
Did you ever buy Smith & Durrell and did the Whitman deal go thru’ for the Woolworth juveniles?
I received the 2 copies of Tokyo. I think the book itself is fine. I like its looks but I think the jacket is lousy. It’s cheap and garish and not up to R.H. standards. So we should sell 250,000 copies. We’ve never had a real success with our best jackets. That’s enough “bitching” for to-day but I know you want my honest opinion!
Have the final figures come thru’ yet. I’d like to know what they are before write down, after write down, and the taxes, God bless ’em. I’m broke as a beaver and want to know that my R.H. interest is increasing by leaps and bounds!
Had the CO down for dinner last night, an old man of 27 from Guadalcanal, a Lt. Col. and a fine sensitive youngster. He’s new at the field and I like him plenty. There’s been no excitement around here. Two out of our four squadrons have gone off to combat as replacements so things are really pretty quiet, as the new news hasn’t come in yet.
I still have no idea how long I’ll be here—when I’ll go to Orlando and start the final trek out of the country. It will happen when I least expect it of that I’m sure.
It’s lovely and cool here so I guess I should not complain. But I still prefer 20 East to Pocatello. And I don’t trust you alone with my Pauline!
My love to all—
Donald
Will return the dummies under sep. cover!
June 30, 1943
Dear Don:
There is a cool breeze blowing today and everybody is suddenly full of pep again. It marks the end of two weeks of the most insufferable hot weather that I think New York has ever known.
Saturday afternoon Harry Abrams, Lew Miller and Ray Freiman came up to my house. The four of us put on bathing trunks and sat around the back yard talking about the Illustrated Modern Library for about two hours. Every few minutes we punctured the conversation long enough to turn the hose on each other. It was about 96 in the shade out there! I am enclosing herewith a list of fifty titles that we selected for possible inclusion in the series when, as and if. I will be interested in hearing your comments on same. Note that all but one of them (The Bible) are already in the Modern Library. The Bible project is to me the most exciting thing connected with the whole affair to date. LeRoy Baldridge is going to do decorations and some illustrations for the job. We are having trial pages set now, and Harry Abrams is sure that we can get the whole thing in about 1060 pages, Modern Library size. For the illustrated editions, we’ll use a second color tint block as background. Maybe you will remember the experimentation that was done with this device for that BOMC–Random House Shakespeare that never came to anything. That is the sort of thing we’ll use on The Bible. For our regular Modern Library, of course, we won’t have the second color, but Baldridge is planning the work so that it will look perfect in black and white. This will make volume No. 4 for the Modern Library some time next year. Now all we need is a dictionary and our dream of having Shakespeare, The Bible and the dictionary in the Modern Library will have come true. To me this is about as important as anything that has been done by this firm since we started. And the beauty of it is that these terribly expensive plates are costing us so very little because of the tax situation.
Ah yes, the tax situation! After writing off everything we could possibly dream of in connection with both Random House and the Modern Library advances, and also deducting approximately $25,000.00 for t
he new pension fund, we still had a net profit of something like $412,000.00. Mannie, Abe and I then got to work on the good old inventory and managed to get the net figure down to $285,000.00, which is what I am afraid we are going to have to report. $25,000.00 of the inventory cut came off the Modern Library. We got that figure by reducing our present inventory to the same figure that we used last year. The rest of the cut came out of the Random House inventory. A large part of it, of course, is on our present stock of Duplaix books.
The Smith-Durrell deal fell through because Horace advised us that we’d be treading on very thin ice if we tried using their paper or apply their losses to our own tax problem. The literary properties weren’t worth the paper that this letter is written on.… The Duplaix deal, however, is definitely set, and Georges was more optimistic yesterday about production than he has been in a long time. We may not get all the juveniles we want from him this Fall, but we are certainly going to get many thousand more than we counted on. We could sell ten times the number that we are getting.… We are also getting 100,000 pounds of paper extra from A.B. Barnes & Co. Hal Dunbar wangled this deal for us. This paper will take care of the entire run on the Illustrated Modern Library, and then some.… Early reports on TOKYO are nothing short of ecstatic. In this connection, I am enclosing letters from Knopf and Schuster. I think you will be amused at the difference between the really sincere man and a professional—and to me, obvious—soft soaper!
Jezebel says she now has to go to the can, so I will close with lotions of love.
Walter Winchell Cerf
P.S. Ed Falk has fallen for a Cuban dancer of 27 and will probably marry her. Sartorius is also in love. His gal is an Ensign in the Waves, and so far is holding out.
Incidentally, it may be a matter of mild interest to you to know that GUADALCANAL nudged gracefully over the 100,000 mark yesterday. First time in our history. And SUEZ is over 90,000. My present guess is that TOKYO will be over 200,000 before the end of the year.
July 4, 1943
Dear Bennett—
Boy—was it a pleasure to get your long and newsy letter.… It came on a particularly dreary day. July 4th and nothing to celebrate except being on the job as usual. My boss leaves for Mountain Home to-morrow on assignment I wouldn’t wish on Hitler—and I will become the Group S2 [intelligence officer] as of to-morrow. This rates a majority and eventually I’ll get it because they’ll send me out of the country as a Group S2 not a Squadron. I got a big kick out of your enclosure from Lynn. I’m giving some of the same lectures over here and I, too, don’t know a damned thing about the subjects. I don’t envy Lynn his job—and I hope I don’t get sent to England. They won’t allow Intelligence officers to fly in the 8th Air Force. All the others insist on your flying some missions!
Congratulations on Guadalcanal going over 100,000. Tokyo will blanket it in two months I hope. The list of titles that you suggest for the illustrated books is swell, but some of our plates are pretty bad. If you use the ML plates have them checked pretty carefully. The Renoir, for instance, is a duplicate set of Burt plates and shouldn’t be used for anything anymore. Also about using the Kents for Candide?… 37—174—199 are all pretty small and quite battered but the titles are grand. Quite a series of books you publish Mr. Cerf! I’m just as pleased about the Bible idea as you are. It’s grand to do it and the present set up makes it damned near perfect.
How about a small illustrated book of the documents of democracy and our own history? The Articles of Confederation, Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights—something of Monroe Doctrine—Lincoln material, Emancipation Proclamation—Gettysburg Address—Wilson’s inaugural and war message—F.D.R.’s first inaugural—Atlantic Charter etc. There’s so much talk of what the hell this country stands for that an attractive 150-page book, possibly illustrated, gathered by some historian who knows the documents and would keep it short and simple might have a reasonable sale. Sort of the St. John’s idea applied to American history. Going to the source rather than the interpretation. Nevin’s or Commager would do a job! So throw the idea in the waste basket!…
The R.H. list doesn’t look too strong for this fall but we’ll be counting on Tokyo, I’m sure—if the 1944 list is good there’s nothing to worry about but taxes. I hope to Christ Walter Clark’s book is good. He’s a good property.
A happy July 4th to you. I take it that Chris and Phyllis are both blooming. Kiss Pauline for me, chastely, you bastard! My love to Bob, Saxe and the gang—
As ever,
Donald
July 9, 1943
Dear Major-to-Be:
As I wired you yesterday, I was mighty happy to hear that you had gotten the job that you’ve been angling for. Personally, I prefer your getting a job that would keep you anchored close to the ground right here in the United States, but obviously you’ve got your fool heart set on something else and, knowing what a stubborn bastard you are, I realize that nothing can be done about it. Go ahead and get your ass shot full of ack-ack; poor old Cerf will carry on in his usual faithful fashion at 20 East 57th Street. (Of course, you realize that “carry on” has several connotations!)
Monday is the official publication date for TOKYO. Of course we’re all holding our breaths to see if the public shares the unrestrained enthusiasm of all the booksellers, critics and ourselves. Frankly, I don’t see how the book can miss. Even that old sourpuss Harold Williams called up to say, “Boy, what you could do with that book if Klopfer were on the job!” I will keep you closely posted on significant day-to-day sales in the first fortnight.
In the meantime, another manuscript has arrived that kept me bouncing up and down on the edge of my chair just the way GUADALCANAL and TOKYO did. I begged King Features to find me something on the Aleutian campaign, and damned if those bastards didn’t come across again. Some youngster named Howard Handelman has done 250 pages of the most wonderful war stuff imaginable. It hasn’t been cleared by any of the censors yet and a lot of it, I am sure, is going to have to be taken out. Do you think it would be safe for me to mail it out to you to Idaho for a quick look-see? I have to have it back pronto since we have no copy, and I don’t want to send it unless you are absolutely sure that it will be all right. Let me know about this. We cannot do anything with the book, of course, until the Kiska show is completed. Handelman is in San Francisco at the moment, but is leaving for the front next week. He has assurances that he will be there in time for anything spectacular. Even if we never get another word of the manuscript, what we have is good for a 50,000 minimum, I am sure. Where are we going to get the paper? How the hell do I know?
You may consider the Illustrated Modern Library officially launched. Horace is drawing up a contract with Harry Abrams which means that my eight line memo is now being elaborated into a 42-page document. We are paying 3¢ a copy royalty on the first 15,000 of any title and 5¢ a copy thereafter. Five titles are projected for this Fall and another ten for next year and Abrams, who moves faster than anybody I’ve ever seen, has got the fifteen most important artists in America all lined up already for the project. Included are Thomas Benton, Stewart Edward Curry, Edward Wilson, George Grosz, and several other top notchers whom a dope like you never heard of. (Me either. Besides, I can’t remember them at the moment.) At any rate, I will send you a complete outline in a few days’ time, as soon as we get it all put down on paper. The important thing, of course, is The Bible, and that’s what everybody is concentrating on at the moment. If the other four titles don’t get out this Fall, it will be a matter of little importance to us. The Bible, however, is going to be a wow. Under present market conditions, we could sell 100,000 of them, if we had them.
The big social news of the moment is that Phyllis’ mother is arriving for the weekend tomorrow. Zowie! And to add further joy to my life, I have just heard that that slimy, ass-kissing son-of-a-bitch Silberberg has been made a Lieutenant Colonel. I can’t state my full views of this situation since Jezebel has not yet reached that point in her
education. Pfooey!
There is probably some other news around that would interest you, but enough is enough. Why don’t you call up some evening?
Love to you and Pat.
As ever,
Bennett
July 11, 1943
Dear Bennett—
Thanks so much for your telegram with the good news of Tokyo reviews. 250,000 by Christmas is our goal and I really think we have a good chance of reaching it. I take it the advance was around 45 to 50,000! Send me something on the Aleutian book when you have a chance. I hope you’re not kidding about its excellence.
I am no longer the Group S2. Two days after I took over a major from Command and Staff School came in here assigned to Intelligence. The CO practically threw him out on his ass but he came from higher authority so he had to be made the S2. I’m running the Dept. and am responsible for it, but I’m no longer the boss. So I suspect I’ll be shipped out within a reasonable time! I really don’t give a damn as what I want is my own combat group, and I know I’ll get it eventually.
Life continues to run along at a smooth and pleasant pace. We’re living comfortably and the weather is gorgeous, not working too hard, and my only complaint is a feeling of restlessness and futility.
Give my love to Bob, Thrup and the office in general. Am holding my thumb for Tokyo!
Love,
Donald
1943 JUL 12 PM 6 20
BENNETT A CERF
TRANSFERRED TO FOUR FORTY FIFTH BOMBARDMENT GROUP SIOUX CITY IOWA LEAVING TOMORROW. GOOD BREAK LETTER FOLLOWS ADDRESS MAIL ARMY AIR BASE ABOVE ADDRESS LOVE=
DONALD.
July 13, 1943.
CAPTAIN DONALD S. KLOPFER