How national review Sold Out to google

A Longtime Friend and Colleague
Mon, Sep 6, 2021 12:20 p.m.

How national review Sold Out to google

ALF&C: I wrote fairly regularly for nr for five years, back in the pre-internet dark ages:

https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/how-the-national-review-sold-its

N.S.: Twenty years ago, Jonah Goldberg published a longish essay of mine on George S. Schuyler at nro for the princely sum of $50. The year before that, Adam Bellow had commissioned me to review Thomas Sowell's autobiography, but backed out. At least he paid me a kill fee of $70. and circa 2004, Kathryn Jean Lopez commissioned me to review Richard Phelps' book on test-bashers. I delivered; she ignored my review.

For centuries, cheating freelancers has been editors' favorite pastime. The most notorious such case I'm aware of, involved spinster schoolteacher and Victorian-style Canadian scholar, Florence Deeks. Miss Deeks researched and wrote a monumental history of the world, and sent her manuscript off to Macmillan Canada. The publisher happened to be the publisher of H.G. Wells, and passed Miss Deeks' ms. along to his star author, who put his name on Miss Deeks' ms. The book, which first came out circa 1920, was a runaway, two or three-volume (reports vary) bestseller, selling millions, hugely influential, and a few years later, Wells cut it down to a condensed version, and had a new bestseller.