Letters From the Editor: The New Yorker's Harold Ross

by Harold Wallace Ross, Thomas Kunkel

"Don't waste your time and words on letters," Harold Ross cautioned more than one writer. "You don't get paid for them." Happily, The New Yorker's founding editor and dreamer didn't follow his own advice, and now--thanks to his biographer, Thomas Kunkel -- we can share in Ross's revealing, inspiring, and hilarious correspondence. The fizzing communiqués collected in Letters from the Editor begin when he was a serviceman in France during World War I, and from the start his impulses were comedic. In April 1918, for example, a shell came a little too close for comfort: "My morale was shattered. I immediately retreated to a subway station and remained there for two hours. I then came up and consumed a whole bottle of 'morale.'"

Ross liked to present himself as an unadorned, uneducated type, but from the moment he magicked up The New Yorker in 1924, it's clear that he was far more. Nonetheless, as late as 1949 he declared, "I don't know anything I've done for the human race, except possibly entertain a minute segment of it from time to time, and I can't compare myself with Goethe, because I don't know what he did for the race, either." The above quotes should give readers some notion of Ross's zinging mode, his sentences gathering into an absurd or satirical finale. Here's another: In 1937, he told E.B. White: "A gentleman from Montreal wrote in suggesting that your last piece be set to music. I suppose you got that letter. There was some talk that I ought to write you a letter upon completion of ten years service and I started a couple of times on it, my idea being to have that set to music and sing it to you." And the paragraph only gets better from there -- just take a look at page 120. In fact, Ross's dispatches to White and White's wife, New Yorker editor Katharine White, are among the book's most tantalizing as he wheedles, exclaims, scolds, and invigorates.

Ross lived for his job, and gave endless support to his writers, artists, and editors. His letters to the likes of Fitzgerald, Thurber, Rebecca West -- not to mention the various Marx brothers -- are graceful and unsycophantic. Yet he was no less solicitous to the obscure. In 1949 he complimented one Sally Benson on her "very good and trim story" before admonishing her: "Twenty-six stories in the next twenty-six weeks is what I expect from you, young lady, and come to think of it no more suicides during that period. Our characters have been bumping themselves off so often lately that our readers think they're reading Official Detective half the time."

Of course Letters from the Editor lets us in on far more than The New Yorker, but it is Ross's missives and memos to his staff and contributors -- and several more than acrimonious shots at his publisher and advertising department -- that are most intriguing. Here was an editor who was concerned with every level of the magazine: he kept a card catalog with story ideas but was equally obsessed with language, commas, typos, and even the vexed question of large or small capital letters. In this sense, Kunkel's collection is a sublime record of a lost era. Ross was a lucky visionary, after all, who never concerned himself with target audiences, focus groups, or user testing. By his own lights, he and his colleagues were not "'aware' of our readers. It's the other way around with me. All I know about getting out a magazine is to print what you think is good ... and let nature take its course: if enough readers think as you do, you're a success, if not you're a failure. I don't think it's possible to edit a magazine by 'doping out' your audience, and would never try to do that." Hmmm, could Harold Ross have something there? --Kerry Fried

Genres: Nonfiction, Journalism

448 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[marilyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this a lot. It really sucked me into the first half of the 20th century in New York, and I checked out all of E.B. White's writings from the library the other day. I read my New Yorkers with more vigor and delight in its long and badass history, helmed by Ross.

I always love reading other people's correspondence, so it was also especially great to see life through someone who lived a great deal through his typewriter and dictation and letters and memos. It makes me wonder whether one day we'll have a collection of great authors' emails, or if this type of book is a thing of the past.

[Louis · Rating 3 out of 5]

These are a great companion to Genius in Disguise. They're just hilarious letters.

[Adrian]

Forty years of letters from the dispeptic, ornery and plegmatic Ross whose lasting legacy is the creation of the New Yorker magazine. Letters surrounding the foundation of the magazine and WWII are probably the best but Ross's constant cajoling, prodding and support of the best writers of his generation are moving and funny. "Write something goddamn it" he often wrote. Ross died too young at 59 in 1951 the result of constant smoking since he was a teenager.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harold Ross was one of the most influential magazine editors of the first half of the twentieth century and this collection of letters shows us why. Ross started The New Yorker in 1925 as a topical magazine that was dedicated to printing serious fiction as well as being "entertaining and bright." He encouraged such writers as E. B. White, James Thurber, Rebecca West, Majorie Kinnan Rawlings, and John Hersey. In 1929 her wrote to F. Scott Fitzgerald, thanking him for a submission and asking for more: "You wouldn't get rich doing it, but it ought to give you satisfaction." Ross exhibited a strong sense of ethics and prohibited advertising that contained lies and by 1942 banned ads for hotels that wouldn't admit Jews. He warned the business manager not to request theater tickets for anyone other than the theater critic. And he was an early champion of copyright protection for writers and cartoonists. Although somewhat conservative on social issues such as race, Ross was willing to change. He wrote against firing staffers who were branded as communists in 1947 and edited a piece on lynching that same year. He also wrote in support of a homosexual who had been dishonorably discharged from the Navy. Despite making snide comments about working women, he collaborated with many women writers and relied heavily on the advice of Katherine Angell. He was aware if the influence that The New Yorker had and was willing to take unpopular stands including not promoting war in 1940 and in 1946 devoting an entire issue to John Hersey's writing on Hiroshima. The book is well edited with just enough information to set each of these letters in context. Well worth reading for insight into an era and into one of the most scrupulous editors in American letters.

[AB Freeman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was such a random book choice for me. On a two-day visit through Downtown Los Angeles in early 2024, I searched out one of the best second-hand bookstores I could find and went directly to the bargain bin (or Dollar) section. I don’t live in the US, so each visit becomes a search for the cheapest, most interesting kinds of books I can find to fill my growing library abroad. As a New Yorker subscriber, I couldn’t help but hope this biography of founder Harold Ross (albeit in letters he himself wrote) might be a compelling and engaging read.

Indeed, there are many interesting anecdotes and Ross’s manner of writing is certainly indicative of a sophisticate of his time; however, there were several instances in which I wished I had had a bit more context. The editor, Thomas Kunkel, does a good job in helping the reader understand what Ross and the magazine were often facing, but still some questions remained. Yet, it is impressive in featuring the wide array of personalities that Ross encountered in his twenty-five years as Editor, and as a historical document, the book excels in featuring its subject. Ross was indeed an interesting, if not partially problematic, figure.

3 stars (more like 3.5). To pull back the curtain and expose the early days of The New Yorker was exactly what I hoped for in grabbing this book from the bargain bin. That said, I can understand why it was located there in the first place. The writing is definitively from another time, and does not feature a specific narrative; thus, some readers might be put off by the lack of a “takeaway.” I was happily reminded of the power of writing effective correspondence, and how efficiently utilising the same in my personal and professional lives might be useful.

[Cj Rey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book of letters by Harold Ross as a “gift” from an online used bookseller. I think I had ordered something by EB White and they threw this in too with a note saying they thought I would enjoy it.

Boy, did I!

Thank you, kind and generous bookseller. I’m very grateful. I never would have found this book on my own.

And I’m grateful to Harold Ross for bringing us The New Yorker.

Even though these letters are from decades ago, I am inspired by his clever and friendly communication style. Can you be in love with a man who died in 1951? Asking for a friend.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

We don't write as many letters as we used to and, while the number of emails we send today likely eclipses the correspondence volume of an earlier era, this book shows that we're probably sacrificing quality for quantity. Harold Ross was a character - certainly a talented one - and his letters are delightful to read.

[Avis Black · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tedious. Ross was not a good writer or a high-quality intellect.

[Dovofthegalilee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This isn't the sort of thing I normally go in for and to tell the truth I simply bought it to add to my already expanding collection of Modern Library editions. However I don't believe in using books as decorations so if I but it I read it. So that is how I ended up with this book and am I ever glad! I've read the New Yorker for years and I've read some of it's editors and contributors over the course of time but I never thought such a compilation would grasp me. i was wrong. It's very unpretentious sort of like reading the journals of Anais Nin with all of the famous names in an ordinary setting of exchanges for this was their ordinary life.

[Lawrence Coffman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful look into the mind of the mercurial, brilliant, and often hilarious founder and editor of the New Yorker. A larger than life personality who departed this life way too soon. (Ross died at age 59 from lung cancer.)

[Ikram · Rating 2 out of 5]

Buku ini isinya kumpulan surat-surat seorang editor majalah. Mulai dari penulis, sampai ke anaknya. Lumayan buat belajar bahasa Inggris :)

[Nick Black · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating look at a cast of characters you've heard of, but never gotten down with.

[River Rock · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish we're all writing letters and practicing our wits again

[Jim · Rating 1 out of 5]

frustrating not having the answers to the letters or at least editor's notes. what happened w/harpo marx and the car?

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

really cool...