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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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Session:         Page of 1029

more of an entrepreneur than Boni. He had a flair, as I say; and loved good living. He had been born into a good family and had some money, too, which he threw around rather lavishly. He was always in trouble, because as soon as he got his hands on money, he spent it and enjoyed himself.

Q:

Who was editing or working on Modern Library when you were there?

Cerf:

Nobody. It was done sort of at the last minute. One editor would say, “Hey, we've got to find a couple of new titles for the Modern Library.” And it would be done in a haphazard way. The Modern Library was a great success, but nobody cared much about it.

Q:

It developed successfully.

Cerf:

It developed almost by itself. It was so successful; it was such a good idea. I very quickly became by default the editor of the Modern Library. If I wanted to put a book in Modern Library, I could always talk Horace into it because he didn't give much of a damn. It wasn't exciting enough for him. So I determined I was going to get hold of that Modern Library. We'll talk about that next time.

Q:

You were talking about editorial meetings. This is part of a publishing memoir. How did the functions go? In other words, who was a part of the meeting?





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