The Power of an Editor
We are excitedly anticipating Harper Lee's "new" book, Go Set a Watchman! Many of you have heard that To Kill a Mockingbird evolved from the original manuscript of Go Set a Watchman. This was due to her work with her editor.
Recently, we found out that one of our friends in publishing, Tom Hallock, of Beacon Press, is the great nephew of Tay Hohoff, Harper Lee's original editor at Lippincott! Talking with Tom about his wonderful aunt made us want to know more about her and we wanted to share her story with you.
It was Tay Hohoff who played a critical role in the creation of To Kill a Mockingbird. Without her insights and encouragement, the book as we know it would never have been written! It was she who suggested that Harper Lee focus on Scout's childhood and she who literally saved the manuscript when a frustrated Harper Lee opened her window and threw the entire draft outside into the snow.* She called Hohoff in tears. The faithful editor told her to "march outside and retrieve the pages."
Our friend Tom Hallock knew his great aunt when he was a little boy - every visit "she brought me everything Lippincott had published since our last visit that could conceivably be of interest to an 8 or 10 year old boy. This sense of bounty, and of a life that was so different than any I'd known in suburban New Jersey intrigued me. I wonder now if these visits didn't give me the first taste of the life in books I would eventually choose for myself."
She was a pioneer, a powerful female editor who kept her own name when she married. As Tay's former assistant recently wrote in a blog post: "Miss Hohoff not only stood up to the important suits in the office; she had her own suits, some of them pin-striped."
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| | Tay Hohoff, editor of To Kill a Mockingbird |
(Tay Hohoff was also the editor for Gladys Taber and Eugenia Price!)
We'd like to acknowledge here our debt to the often unsung heroes of literature - the thoughtful and often relentless editors whose dedicated work with authors such as Harper Lee results in such wonderful books!
*Charles J. Shields, Mockingbird; a Portrait of Harper Lee | 
