In his affectionate biography of the founder and long-time editor of The New Yorker magazine, Harold Ross (1892-1951), James Thurber said, "There were so many different Rosses, conflicting and contradictory, that the task of drawing him in words sometimes appears impossible, for the composite of all the Rosses should produce a single unmistakable entity: the most remarkable man I have ever known and the greatest editor" (The Years with Ross, 1959).
For more than a quarter century, Ross oversaw the work of such notable writers as S.J. Perelman, E.B. White, John Hersey, Alexander Woollcott, John O'Hara, Robert Benchley, Dorothy Parker, and Thurber himself. Considered by some to be obsessively conscientious, Ross insisted that above all else the language in his "book" (The New Yorker) must be clear and concise.
"Editing," he once said, "is the same as quarreling with writers--same thing exactly." In the following excerpts from Thomas Kunkel's Letters from the Editor: The New Yorker's Harold Ross (Modern Library, 2000), we see that for the most part these were lovers' quarrels.
The Functions of an Editor
In a letter to novelist Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Ross took time to distinguish his own responsibilities as "general editor" (one who "queries" items in a story) from those of the magazine's copy editors, who read "all proofs for style, spellings, wordings, grammar, usage, and everything else." He then explained why writers should value the work of editors.
The only great argument I have against writers, generally speaking, is that many of them deny the function of an editor, and I claim editors are important. For one thing, an editor is a good trial horse; the writer can use him to see if a story and its various elements register as he or she thinks they register. An author is very likely to suffer a loss of viewpoint (due to nearness to the subject) before he gets through with a story and finish up with something more or less out of focus. For another thing, editors perform a technical function in small matters that I suspect writers shouldn't concern themselves with overmuch. I think writers, or most writers, ought to let editors backstop the small, more or less technical points. The trouble with our querying system is that it sometimes makes writers self-conscious; they get to thinking--. . . three or four people are going to pick flaws in this--and they freeze up and ponder every word they set down and every punctuation mark. My sage advice for them is to go ahead and write their story and then at the end (with the help of an editor) pick up the chips. This self-consciousness isn't really much of a problem, however; most of the writers think we are helpful at times, if a nuisance generally. We are unquestionably captious and careless frequently and occasionally we suggest changes for the mere sake of change, or for a peculiar personal feeling, but we try not to cram our theories, little or big, down writers' throats.
(Letter to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings [pen name of Mrs. Norton Baskin], November 30, 1945)
Query Everything
Ross worked closely with the copy editors at The New Yorker, often admonishing them for any sloppiness that had crept into the pages of the magazine.
Page 104, May 25 issue, paragraph one, story "Subway Recreation," in the penultimate line, the word "in" is italicized without any justification that I can see.
In the June 15 issue, on page 26, column 2 (see attached) is a bit of sloppy writing which ought to have been caught. The clause which terminates the sentence might (obviously) better have been the first clause of the succeeding sentence.
There have been quite a number of such oversights in the book lately. I wish that all you gentlemen would watch not only for typographical errors--not so much for typographical errors in fact--as for such things as oversights in writing and editing, wordings which will sound untimely when appearing in print (such as mentions of overcoats, straw hats, and other seasonable things as well as events), uniformity in style, and all such things. We are running misprints and clumsy wordings from other publications, and otherwise being Godlike, so WE MUST BE DAMN NEAR PURE OURSELF.
Please query everything . . ..
(Letter to Rogers M. Whitaker, Hobart Weekes, Reed Johnston, and Fred Packard, June 14, 1929)
A Reputation for Fussiness
One New Yorker writer who shared Ross's profound concern for accuracy and exactness was essayist E.B. White. In a three-page letter written in June 1945, Ross challenged White's use of the word "compost," concluding his remarks with this statement of editorial principles.
It's all right for people to say that we are too fussy, that ten or twenty slightly ungrammatical sentences don't matter, but if (from where I sit) I break down on that the magazine would break down all along the line. If we find something wrong, it should be fixed, I claim, even if it is minute. We run Newsbreaks picking on everybody's frailties, and I think it's up to us to get out as clean a book, as to fact and grammar, as we can.
(Letter to E.B. White, June 12, 1945)
To learn more about some of the writers who were influenced by Harold Ross, visit these pages:
