Atlantic Monthly Press

The Atlantic Monthly Press was founded in 1917 as the publishing division of the Atlantic Monthly Company, publishers of the Atlantic Monthly magazine. Ellery Sedwick, editor of the Atlantic Monthly from 1909 to 1938, envisioned the press as a means to publish books expanded from articles and stories originally published in the Atlantic Monthly. The press had few best sellers, and, in 1925, Little, Brown and Company acquired the Atlantic Monthly Press through a merger arranged by Sedwick. In "After 50 Years, People Still Ask What is the Atlantic Monthly Press?" Peter Davison described the relationship between the press and Little, Brown and Co.: "The Atlantic Monthly Press solicits and procures books which are then published by Little, Brown and Co. in association with the Atlantic Monthly Co. These are two distinct corporations: no employee of one is an employee of another" (Publishers Weekly, Oct. 16, 1967). The involvement of Little, Brown and Co. in the press was limited to copy editing, printing, and publicity.

Under Little, Brown, the press had more success with books such as Good-Bye, Mr. Chips (1934) and Drums Along the Mohawk (1936). However, not until the 1950s and 1960s did the press finally achieve financial and critical success with a series of critically acclaimed bestsellers. Among the books that led to this success was Katherine Anne Porter's Ship of Fools (1962). Originally Porter's contract to write the novel was with Harcourt, Brace, but, in the mid 1950s, Atlantic Monthly Press's associate editor Seymour Lawrence convinced Porter to change publishers. Lawrence was closely involved with Porter as she worked to complete the novel that had been in progress for over twenty-five years. In Katherine Anne Porter: A Sense of the Times (1996), Janis P. Stout describes Lawrence's role in the completion of Ship of Fools as "a remarkable instance of literary midwifery." Without his devotion to Porter and her work, it is unlikely that Ship of Fools would ever have been completed.

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