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the night and work until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, when nobody's around to disturb him. Then he sleeps until noon. It's very hard to get O'Hara on the phone before noon. He's usually asleep.

In fact, he's very hard to get on the phone, period. He has unlisted numbers and if I ever give them out, he almost murders me. He's always being pestered. People want to interview him, girls in particular. John was a great lady's man in his day, but he feels that he's beyond that now. He still appreciates pretty girls. Well, that's O'Hara.

Also in '49 we signed up an author whom unfortunately we lost. We did a book by Mary McCarthy called The Oasis, but she was Robert Linscott's personal contact. I only met her once. Then they had a fight. I never found out what it was about, but she left in a huff because of Linscott. That's how you sometimes lose a very important author. It's nothing that you've done yourself but because they had a fight with their editor. Linscott got her and Linscott lost her.

Then in 1950 came the Landmark Books.

Which you've gone into.

One thing that you did in this period...you sold the Wonder Book Series in '49 to Curtis. I wonder why?

Wonder Books were similar to the Golden Book juveniles. They were a little bit more expensive than the Golden Books, which sold for a quarter. Our series was designed to sell for