Perkins, Maxwell

Perkins, Maxwell (Evarts)

(born Sept. 20, 1884, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died June 17, 1947, Stamford, Conn.) U.S. editor. He worked as a reporter for The New York Times before joining the publishing firm of Charles Scribner's Sons, of which he later became editorial director and vice president. He is best known for the intensive editorial work that shaped Thomas Wolfe's sprawling manuscripts into publishable form, but he also assisted the early careers of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Ring Lardner, Erskine Caldwell, Edmund Wilson, and Alan Paton.

---

Perkins, Maxwell (Evarts) (1884–1947) editor, publisher; born in New York City. Joining Charles Scribner's Sons as an editor in 1914 (and later holding various corporate offices there as well), he showed a genius for recognizing and fostering talent, publishing early works by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway, and others. He is widely considered the best editor in the trade.