DEAR DONALD, DEAR BENNETT

Charming WWII-era letters exchanged by the founders of Random House.

Both men were too old to be drafted (Cerf was 43 in 1942, Klopfer 40), but their correspondence sparkles with the youthful joie de vivre of people who love their work. Quiet, modest Klopfer writes only a little about his service as an intelligence officer in England; the letters mainly concern Random House business, discussed by Cerf with the ebullience familiar to readers of his popular humor books and the memoir At Random (1977). They describe book publishing in its pre-corporate heyday, when selling 100,000 copies of a new title like Guadalcanal Diary was a huge achievement, and maintaining the backlist was still a primary concern for a hardcover publisher. The winds of change are in the air, though, as Random snaps up a major interest in Grosset & Dunlap, snatching it away from hated rival Simon & Schuster because Cerf can see that in the future making a “package offer” to authors including paperback and book club deals will provide a crucial commercial edge. His partner was less sanguine about these developments. “Will Random House be any fun at all as a ‘big business’ instead of our very personal venture?” he writes in 1944. We can see how personal relations were among the staff, as Cerf recounts marital breakups, alcohol-soaked dinners, and weekends by the pool with key members of the Random team. The extended running joke concerning the men’s secretary, nicknamed “Jezebel”—her supposed love for fur coats, her bosses’ alleged lust for her—will strike many modern readers as sexist and patronizing, but the intent is so obviously affectionate that they’ll be inclined to forgive this manifestation of another generation’s attitudes. Klopfer’s and Cerf’s deep love for each other permeates every page of this delightful book to make it a moving record of friendship as well as an illuminating snapshot of American cultural history.

Intelligent, thoughtful, and deliciously gossipy: a must for anyone interested in book publishing.