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May 17

Written by: Diana West
Sunday, May 17, 2015 5:12 AM 

From Memoirs of a Dissident Publisher by Alfred Regnery:

As for the association with Bill Buckley, it has been greatly rewarding. Our friendship has had its ups and downs, as seems often the case in the rather difficult relationship between author and publisher, but we published with great success another of his books, McCarthy and His Enemies, which he wrote with Brent Bozell [holds up to this day as an excellent study -- dw]. And we are still on good terms. Buckley was probably more sensitive to criticism in those days than he has since become, and was quick to fire off letters in reply to his critics, some of which I tried, without success, to induce him to tone down. When I sent a copy of God and Man at Yale to T.S. Eliiot, I was disappointed that he did not think it was suitable for publication in England by Faber & Faber, but was gratified to have him say, in his letter of reply, "Thank you ... for sending me Mr. Buckley's book, which interested me very much. While I thought that he made one or two serious mistakes of strategy, I am glad to hear that it has attracted much attention." Buckley, however, was incensed, and in a letter to me commented, "I am astounded and disappointed by the superficiality of T.S. Eliot's remarks about my book." I had expected him to be pleased that Eliot had read the book at all and taken the time to say something about it, but Buckley was a young man then, and his first book was, quite properly, a matter of the utmost seriousness...

 

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