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Do you remember the first time you met William Faulkner?

No, I don't remember the first time I met him. I remember the first time I read a book by him. I was selling our new list in Philadelphia. There were two fellows who had a little shop there, the Centaur Book Shop, a lovely little shop--Harold Mason and David Jester were their names. And in this shop they had all the newest things in books. You don't see them anymore. It was something like Ted Halliday's book shop in New York, a personal book shop. And there one day Harold Mason told me, “Harcourt, Brace have published a book by a fellow I. think is going to be one of the great authors of America. His name is William Faulkner.” Liveright had published two books by him already called Soldier's Pay and Mosquitoes, which had gotten some reviews but hadn't sold. But this book was called Sanctuary. In those days it was a shocking book. So I took a copy home, and I read it in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Philadelphia. The next morning I told Harold Mason, “You're right about this man. He's got something tremendous.” I lost no time getting hold of his other two books, Mosquitoes and Soldier's Pay, never dreaming that some day I'd be his publisher. When the Smith and Haas negotiations began, the name of Faulkner was in letters a mile high in my mind. I wanted William Faulkner.

You say you were very good friends with him.

We became very, very good friends.