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They were beginning to do non-copyright titles, like Moby Dick and The Scarlet Letter and books that were standard that we had more or less had a monopoly on. The paperbacks were hurting, and the thought of one firm, Simon and Schuster, owned by Marshall Field, having the original publishing unit, the hardbound reprint, and the paperback too was frightening. They could go to an author and say, “We can not only publish your book. We can guarantee you the hardbound reprint and we'll guarantee you the paperback.” That would be a package deal none of us could equal!

I hastily called Harry Scherman, our friend at the Book-of-the-Month Club. It turned out Donald Grosset had gone to him before he had come to me, but they very wisely had said, “We don't want to be tied up with any publishing unit. We want to be able to operate freely so nobody can say that we have a special interest.” Harry said, “If you fellows are interested in this, we'll reconsider. I don't like to see one firm owning all these properties.”

Then we sat down. Meredith Wood and Harry Scherman came up to our office, and we talked about a combination and who would we ask. Well, we wanted Scribner's because they had Hemingway and Fitzgerald and several important authors, and we wanted one of the Boston houses or both of them. We decided to ask Little Brown and Houghton-Mifflin and Harper's. Harper's Cass Canfield came up and joined us and said he's be happy to come in. Then we tackled the Boston angle. We asked Little Brown before we asked Houghton-Mifflin because