PAUL R. REYNOLDS

70 FIFTH AVENUE
NEW YORK

NEW YORK
PAUL R. REYNOLDS
HAROLD OBER
TELEPHONE CHELSEA 6490
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LONDON
JOHN FARQUHARSON
8 HALSEY HOUSE
RED LION SQUARE
LONDON, W. C. L
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January 15, 1926.

Percy Marks, Esq.,
Palazzo Apts.,
2406 Telegraph Ave.,
Berkeley, Calif.

Dear Mr. Marks:

I submitted POWDERED WINGS to Scribner. They have offered to buy it if they could have it for two hundred dollars. Of course this will seem to you a small price, but Scribner has a small circulation and doesn't pay large sums for their stories. In my judgment, if you want to sell the story, you have no option in the matter. The average popular magazine, as I think you probably realize, doesn't care for a story of this type. They don't want to hear about an over-refined woman whose over-refinement has made her anaemic - I say anaemic, if she isn't anaemic physically, she is anaemic in every other way. On the other hand, the people who read Scribner's Magazine will appreciate your story and the excellence with which it is written.

Although we all should like, we
can't have, our cake and eat it too. If you had
written a raw, crude story full of sensation with
the colors thrown on by pailfuls, we might have sold
it for a large sum to one of the more popular
magazines. If you write the rare, exquisite type
of story, it leads to a rare, exquisite price, but
I should think, under the circumstances, you would
be very glad to have it land in Scribner's even at
this small price.

Please let me know whether I am to
accept this or not. Scribner includes in their
offer English and Canadian rights. They have an
English edition and therefore say they must have
the English rights. I don't think there is any
reason why we shouldn't give them such rights because
the chances of selling an American story of this
type in England aren't very good.

Thank you for your letter of

PAUL R. REYNOLDS

599 FIFTH AVENUE
NEW YORK

New York
PAUL R. REYNOLDS
HAROLD OBER
TEL. MURRAY HILL 7461
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London
JOHN FARQUHARSON
8 HALSEY HOUSE
RED LION SQUARE
LONDON, W. C. I.
CABLE JOFACHAD LONDON

April 3, 1926.

Percy Marks, Esq.,
2406 Telegraph Ave.,
Berkeley, Calif.

Dear Mr. Marks:

Thank you for yours of March 29th
and I note what you say about the contract with
the Century Company for your next books. I'll
be glad to see it when it is finished and as you
know I will do my best for it.

With regard to the stories -
PEACOCK FEATHERS has been offered to the Post,
Liberty, Chicago Tribune, Red Book and Collier.
I don't feel confident about this story. I think
what you set out to do you have done well, but
there is nothing winning to me about the story.

THE BLACK ELEPHANT has been shown
to Harper, Century, American Mercury and is now
with the Atlantic Monthly. In this case I
should be strongly inclined to believe the story
wouldn't sell because it deals with death and
hearses and the irony of having the man, himself,
the first person in the hearse isn't an idea
which attracts.

THE BLIND DATE seems to me a more
saleable type, and, although it has been declined
by Collier and Liberty and is now with the Red Book,
I think there is more chance of its selling.

I am sorry to say that Mencken
declined WHICH WAY PARNASSUS?. I shall be glad to
see you when you reach New York.

PRR/P

PAUL R. REYNOLDS & SON

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NEW YORK

New York
PAUL R. REYNOLDS
PAUL R. REYNOLDS, JR.

TEL. VOLUNTEER 0640-1-2
CABLE: CARBONATO, NEW YORK

London
JOHN FARQUHARSON

March 11, 1930.

Dear Mr. Marks:

THREE LETTER MAN has been declined by six magazines. I showed it to a man connected with the Crowell Publishing Company, because he told me they were very hungry for stories, and this man, whose name is Overton, showed it to Mr. Blossom who is the editor of The American Magazine. I am enclosing copy of Mr. Overton's letter. I telephoned Mr. Overton and he said that if you were in California they wouldn't care to have you do the article because they had already suggested a similar scheme to a man who is nearby. Apparently he wanted to be able, I suppose, to talk with you about the article before you wrote it. My impression of the story confirms Mr. Overton's impression because when I first read the story before I offered it, and made a report on it, I said, "Some people might say it was a sort of sermon told in the form of a story". I am sending you this simply because I think you will be interested. I shall try the story in other quarters.

With regard to A SOARING BIRD, I like this story and think I ought to be able to sell it somewhere. It is well done and it has, in my judgment, an important element in the story, namely, a good deal of feeling. There are, however, two slight changes I should like to make. In the first place, I'd like to strike out the words "and honor" on page 9, and on page 11 I'd like to change the first paragraph slightly so as to veil a little the idea that your principal character wished the second girl to become his mistress. I think that I would be able to sell the story to one of the big women's magazines if I did this. They don't like a thing put as baldly as that. I realize that this may annoy you but after all, if by making certain concessions you can sell the story, I suppose you would be willing to make them. If you aren't willing, write me that and I will send the story forth as you wrote it. I think it a good story and I shall hope to sell it.

I don't feel sure about THREE LETTER MAN but I am going to do my best for that, also.

Percy Marks, Esq.
1165 Glen Avenue
Berkely, Calif.

PRR/S