In the Company of Writers: A Life in Publishing

It was “the golden age” of American literature. Max Perkins edited Hemingway and Fitzgerald, royalties were still calculated by hand, and business was usually based on personal ties between publisher and author.

It was into this world that Charles Scribner, Jr. was born, his career predetermined at the time of his christening. He grew up in publishing and cut his editorial teeth on giants like Edmund Wilson, C.P. Snow, P.D. James and Charles Lindbergh. But towering above them all was Ernest...