Miss Kirkus and Her Discoveries (Laura’s Editors, Part 1)

Kirkus Reviews has been in the news recently, following the December announcement that the book review service would be closing down after 76 years. Unless you work in a library or bookstore you’ve probably never even seen a print copy of Kirkus Reviews, but chances are you’ve read a review from Kirkus on a book jacket or an Amazon.com page.

The reviews are anonymous, but the name “Kirkus” is well known. And no doubt it rings a bell for Laura fans, because Virginia Kirkus, who founded Kirkus Reviews, edited Laura’s first books. She was the head of the children’s book division at Harper & Brothers.

I’d been planning on writing about the four children’s book editors involved with the Little House books in chronological order, but given the recent news I’ll start with Virginia Kirkus. She was really the second editor Laura and Rose worked with: the children’s editor at Knopf, Marion Fiery, had accepted the manuscript for Little House in the Big Woods. But just two months later, Knopf decided to close its children’s division.

It was 1931, after all, and hard times tend to be even harder for publishers, as perhaps you’ve noticed lately.  As Virginia Kirkus herself said in a 1953 essay in The Horn Book Magazine: “The ‘depression’ was making its impress on our sales; people were thinking that new books for children were unnecessary, while the old ones could serve.” But the children’s editors who still had jobs—like Kirkus at Harper—were nonetheless looking for new books, and her friend Marion Fiery told her about Laura’s manuscript.

The Biltmore Hotel

Kirkus wasn’t excited at first: “What I was told on the phone about the book failed to impress my interest. ‘An elderly lady was writing a true story—in fictional form—about her pioneer childhood.’ Well, I’d heard that tale before…” (As a children’s book editor I can attest that prospective books NEVER sound good over the phone. Don’t call; just send!)

Despite her lack of enthusiasm, Kirkus met Marion Fiery for tea at the Biltmore Hotel before catching the train home from Grand Central Station. She was convinced to take the manuscript home and make a decision by the following Monday. Apparently she started reading the manuscript right after her meeting.

You might already know what happens next, since it’s kind of a legend by now: Kirkus missed her train because she was so caught up in the story. And then when she got on a later train, she missed her regular stop.

(The current train schedules show it’s about an hour from Grand Central to Westport, Connecticut. Who wants to bet the sugaring dance chapter is to blame?)

At the time Kirkus was living what she called a “fairly rugged life,” in Connecticut, in a house lit by kerosene lamps and with only a pump in the kitchen; it was one reason why she found “Little House in the Woods” (as it was called at the time) so compelling.  “But the real magic was in the telling,” she wrote in her Horn Book essay. “Here was the book no depression could stop.”

Except, well, Harper & Brothers didn’t see it that way at first. Kirkus worked on Big Woods and Farmer Boy, and though the first book did well, the second one had needed work. In 1932, the books had yet to become a successful series, and Harper decided to cut back on its children’s books division. (Notice a recurring theme here? Ugh.) Kirkus was offered a job in another department until business improved, but she refused, and left the company. She didn’t have another job lined up. Instead, she started the Virginia Kirkus Bookshop Service.

Kirkus claimed the idea came to her in the middle of the night: to provide book reviews not for newspapers or magazines, but for booksellers who were trying to decide which new books to order.  Bookselling is a tricky business in any economy, and Kirkus thought that an unbiased review bulletin would help both publishers and bookstores sell books.

For the plan to work, Kirkus had to read the books before they were published, while they were still in proofs. It’s now standard practice for publishers to send out galley proofs to reviewers in advance, but it wasn’t in 1933; Kirkus helped innovate the system and convinced publishers to participate. She had a knack at predicting which books would become successful—she was reportedly about 85% accurate.  Eventually she was reading more than 700 books a year.  Wonder how many more trains she missed.

Along with Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus Reviews was one of the two major prepublication review sources in the industry, so the loss to the book world is a significant one. If its influence hasn’t been as great in recent years, its range was still diverse, reviewing small press books that might otherwise be overlooked, and, of course, children’s books. As Horn Book editor Roger Sutton points out, Kirkus was the rare publication that gave equal consideration (and criticism) to books for adults and children.

There are rumors that Kirkus Reviews may yet find a new home; I would love to see them continue. Virigina Kirkus must have known that she’d been in the right place at the right time to give Little House in the Big Woods a chance, and she started her review bulletin because she felt there were other books that deserved to be discovered as well—books that needed to find the readers, booksellers and librarians who would champion them. Even in hard times, she understood, new books are necessary. Let’s hope that never changes.

UPDATE: As Sandra points out in the comments, there is now word that Kirkus Reviews will continue under new ownership. Wonderful news!

Links for further reading: A former owner of Kirkus Reviews reminisces at the Horn Book blog; more on Virginia Kirkus at Trundle Bed Tales; the Big Woods image comes from from an eBay listing for a gorgeous early edition currently for sale.