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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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Session:         Page of 1029

end; next it became a most successful play and then a long, long running television series and a great movie. Mac Hyman must have made over a million dollars on this book.

But here was a case where the second half of the book went to pieces. If this had been his second book, after a success like this, and I had tried to do this to him, he probably would have grabbed the book away from me and stamped furiously out of the office. But he was young, his book had been turned down by three or four other publishers, and he was delighted to do what I begged him to. The title struck him as a good title, and a damned good title it was too. I've titled lots of other books in my day!

Q:

Do you think that a title sells a book?

Cerf:

Sometimes. I titled Bill Brinkley's Don't Go Near the Water and Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford. They turned out to be good titles.

Q:

Tell how you acquired Albert Erskine as a Random House editor.

Cerf:

While World War II was on, Eugene Reynal, who had originated Blue Ribbon Books for Harper, to compete with the successful Doubleday Dollar Books, then started his own business with Hitchcock. I've forgotten Hitchcock's first name, but he went to war with Reynal. The two fellows who





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