About the Prize
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“. . .the recognizing, the encouraging, the guiding of talent—that, in his opinion, was a sacred task worth any amount of effort, of risk, of time expended.”
-JH Wheelock on Maxwell Perkins
In 2005 the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction established the Maxwell E. Perkins Award to honor the work of an editor, publisher, or agent who over the course of his or her career has discovered, nurtured and championed writers of fiction in the United States. This award is dedicated to Maxwell Perkins in celebration of his legacy as one of the country’s most import editors.
Maxwell Evarts Perkins began his career in 1907 as a reporter for the New York Times, but soon moved to a position as advertising manager at the prestigious publishing house, Charles Scribner’s Sons in New York. In 1914 an opening in the editorial department led to Perkins promotion and the beginning of his stellar career in the field of fiction. His first major discovery came five years later when a young writer by the name of F. Scott Fitzgerald started corresponding with the house. Fitzgerald’s first book This Side of Paradise heralded a shift in the style of the time, and made the young writer famous. Perkins soon rose to prominence as an editor with impeccable taste as he signed Ernest Hemingway on to the company. Thomas Wolfe rounded out Perkins’ triumvirate and became a close friend of the editor’s. Sadly Perkins was cut down by a sudden death at the age of 62, but his legacy lives on in the many books he helped shape.
Works Edited by Maxwell Perkins
F. Scott Fitzgerald
This Side of Paradise (1920)
The Beautiful and Damned (1922)
The Great Gatsby (1925)
Tender is the Night (1934)
Ring Lardner
How to Write Short Stories (With Samples) (1924)
Ernest Hemingway
The Torrents of Spring - satire (1926)
The Sun Also Rises (1926)
A Farewell to Arms (1930)
Death in the Afternoon (1932)
To Have and Have Not (1937)
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
Thomas Wolfe
Look Homeward, Angel (1929)
Of Time and the River (1935)
Upon Wolfe's death Perkins became executor of Tom's literary estate and oversaw the posthumous publication by Harper & Brothers of The Web and the Rock and You Can't Go Home Again.
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
The Yearling - Pulitzer Prize winner (1938)
James Jones
From Here to Eternity (1947)
2007 Maxwell E. Perkins Award Recipient
The Mercantile Library Center for Fiction is pleased to announce that Drenka Willen is the 2007 recipient of the Maxwell E. Perkins Award. Willen’s long career at Harcourt is punctuated by not only her tireless efforts to promote the best literature, but by her work in bringing international fiction in translation to an American audience. Willen’s authors include Umberto Eco, Günter Grass, Jose Saramago, Italo Calvino, and Octavio Paz.
Click here to read Andrew O'Hagan's speech from the 2007 Awards Dinner.
The 2006 Maxwell E. Perkins Award Recipient
photo by Jane Wexler
Gary Fisketjon was from 1980 to 1986 an editor at Random House and Vintage Books, from 1986 to 1990 Editorial Director of the Atlantic Monthly Press, and since then Editor-at-Large and Vice President of Alfred A. Knopf Publishers.
Among the writers he has worked with are Julian Barnes, Peter Carey, Raymond Carver, Annie Dillard, Michael Doane, Andre Dubus, Bret Easton Ellis, Richard Ford, David Gates, Martha Gellhorn, Kent Haruf, Patricia Highsmith, Margot Livesey, Cormac McCarthy, Jay McInerney, Haruki Murakami, Redmond O’Hanlon, Mona Simpson, Graham Swift, Donna Tartt, Rupert Thomson, Joy Williams, Jeanette Winterson, Geoffrey Wolff, and Tobias Wolff. Their honors include the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Books Critics Award, the Booker Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and the PEN/Faulkner Award.
Gary Fisketjon and Richard Ford. Ford introduced and presented Fisketjon with the 2006 Perkins Award.
The 2005 Maxwell E. Perkins Award Recipient
Pat Conroy speaking in honor of Mrs. Talese. Check out the transcript of his speech!