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 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)
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
The Yearling - Pulitzer Prize winner (1938)
James Jones
From Here to Eternity (1947)
2009 Maxwell E. Perkins Award Recipient
The 2009 Maxwell E. Perkins Award was given to Gerald Howard, Vice President and Executive Editor of Doubleday, at our 2009 Benefit and Awards Dinner on November 9th. Gerald has been with Doubleday since 1998. In his tenure at Doubleday, he has worked with Kate Christensen, Walter Kirn, Chuck Palahniuk, Bill Bryson, and Gore Vidal. In his long career, Howard has also edited such eminent authors as David Foster Wallace, Gordon Lish, Larry Heinemann, Irvine Welsh, Don Delillo, Rafi Zabor, James Welch, Leon Forest, Ana Castillo, William S. Burroughs, A.R. Ammons, Walter Mosley and William Kennedy. In 2001, Gerry received the PEN/Roger Klein Award for Editing.
2008 Maxwell E. Perkins Award Recipient
Jonathan Galassi became an editor in the trade division of Houghton Mifflin Company in 1973. He was a senior editor at Random House from 1981 to 1986, when he joined Farrar, Straus and Giroux as vice-president and executive editor. He was named editor-in-chief of FSG in 1988, executive vice-president in 1993, publisher in 1999, and president of the firm in January 2002.
Among the authors Mr. Galassi has worked with at FSG are: Michael Cunningham, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Franzen, Ian Frazier, Thomas L. Friedman, Nadine Gordimer, David Grossman, Shirley Hazzard, Seamus Heaney, Jamaica Kincaid, William Langeweische, Alice McDermott, John McPhee, Louis Menand, Marilynne Robinson, George Packer, Robert Pinsky, Susan Sontag, Calvin Trillin, Mario Vargas Llosa, Scott Turow, Derek Walcott, C. K. Williams, Tom Wolfe, and Charles Wright.
2007 Maxwell E. Perkins Award Recipient
Drenka 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!