Whit Burnett (August 14, 1899 – April 22, 1973) was an American writer and educator who founded and edited the literary magazine '' Story''. In the 1940s, ''Story'' was an important magazine in that it published the first or early works of many writers who went on to become major authors. Not only did Burnett prove to be a valuable literary birddog for new talent, but ''Story'' remained a respectable though low-paying (typically $25 per story) alternative for stories rejected by the large-circulation slick magazines published on glossy paper like ''

Collier's ''Collier's'' was an American general interest magazine founded in 1888 by Peter Fenelon Collier. It was launched as ''Collier's Once a Week'', then renamed in 1895 as ''Collier's Weekly: An Illustrated Journal'', shortened in 1905 to ''Coll ...

'' or ''

The Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely ...

'' or the somewhat more prestigious and literary slick magazines such as ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

''. While ''Story'' paid poorly compared to the slicks and even the pulps and successor digest-sized magazines of its day, it paid better than most of, and had similar cachet to, the university-based and the other independent "

little magazines In the United States, a little magazine is a magazine genre consisting of "artistic work which for reasons of commercial expediency is not acceptable to the money-minded periodicals or presses", according to a 1942 study by Frederick J. Hoffman, ...

" of its era. Burnett and his first wife,

Martha Foley Martha Foley (March 21, 1897 – September 5, 1977) cofounded ''Story'' magazine in 1931 with her husband Whit Burnett. She achieved some celebrity by introducing notable authors through the magazine such as J. D. Salinger, Tennessee Williams an ...

, founded the magazine in Vienna, Austria, in 1931. Showcasing short stories by new authors, 67 copies of the debut issue (April–May, 1931) were mimeographed in Vienna. Two years later, the couple moved to New York City, where they continued to publish the magazine. Burnett and Foley created The Story Press in 1936. In 1939, Harper & Bros. published his memoir ''The Literary Life and to Hell With It''. In the ''

Time Magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Ma ...

'' review of the book, "Funny Editor," the anonymous reviewer characterized Burnett as a humorist.

Columbia University

Burnett taught a short-story writing course at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in the 1930s and '40s. One of his students was J. D. Salinger, whom he mentored and whose first short story, "The Young Folks," was published by Burnett in Story Magazine. Salinger, in his 1964 essay "A Salute to Whit Burnett," said that it was Burnett's use of William Faulkner's short story " That Evening Sun Go Down" in the class that taught him the importance of the author's relationship with his readers. Burnett's plan to publish a book of Salinger's short stories in 1946 fell through, straining their relationship.

New authors

By the late 1930s, the circulation of Story had climbed to 21,000 copies. In addition to Salinger, major authors introduced in Story included

Charles Bukowski Henry Charles Bukowski ( ; born Heinrich Karl Bukowski, ; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his adopted ...

Erskine Caldwell Erskine Preston Caldwell (December 17, 1903 – April 11, 1987) was an American novelist and short story writer. His writings about poverty, racism and social problems in his native Southern United States, in novels such as '' Tobacco Road'' (1 ...

John Cheever John William Cheever (May 27, 1912 – June 18, 1982) was an American short story writer and novelist. He is sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs". His fiction is mostly set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan; the Westchester suburbs; ...

James T. Farrell James Thomas Farrell (February 27, 1904 – August 22, 1979) was an American novelist, short-story writer and poet. He is most remembered for the ''Studs Lonigan'' trilogy, which was made into a film in 1960 and a television series in 1979. B ...

Joseph Heller Joseph Heller (May 1, 1923 – December 12, 1999) was an American author of novels, short stories, plays, and screenplays. His best-known work is the 1961 novel ''Catch-22'', a satire on war and bureaucracy, whose title has become a synonym for ...

Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thr ...

and

Richard Wright Richard Wright may refer to: Arts * Richard Wright (author) (1908–1960), African-American novelist * Richard B. Wright (1937–2017), Canadian novelist * Richard Wright (painter) (1735–1775), marine painter * Richard Wright (artist) (born 19 ...

. Other authors published in the pages of Story included

Carson McCullers Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) was an American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Her first novel, '' The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter'' (1940), explores the spiritual isolation of misfits ...

and

William Saroyan William Saroyan (; August 31, 1908 – May 18, 1981) was an Armenian-American novelist, playwright, and short story writer. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940, and in 1943 won the Academy Award for Best Story for the film ''T ...

. The magazine sponsored various awards (WPA, Armed Forces), and it held an annual college fiction contest.

Later years

Burnett's second wife, Hallie Southgate Burnett, began collaborating with him in 1942. During this period, Story published the early work of

Truman Capote Truman Garcia Capote ( ; born Truman Streckfus Persons; September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984) was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, ...

John Knowles John Knowles (; September 16, 1926November 29, 2001) was an American novelist best known for ''A Separate Peace'' (1959). Biography Knowles was born on September 17, 1926, in Fairmont, West Virginia, the son of James M. Knowles, a purchasing ag ...

and

Norman Mailer Nachem Malech Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007), known by his pen name Norman Kingsley Mailer, was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, activist, filmmaker and actor. In a career spanning over six decades, Maile ...

. During World War II Burnett importantly edited "Time To Be Young", Selected Short Stories, for Editions for the Armed Services, Inc., established by the Council on Books in Wartime. The book was "U.S. Government Property" and not to be sold. It is one of the many extolled in "When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II" by Molly Guptill Manning. Story was briefly published in book form during the early 1950s, returning to a magazine format in 1960. Due to a lack of funds, Story folded in 1967, but it maintained its reputation through the Story College Creative Awards, which Burnett directed from 1966 to 1971.

References

*Salinger, J.D. "A Salute to Whit Burnett", ''Fiction Writers Handbook'' (New York:

Harper & Row Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City. History J. & J. Harper (1817–1833) James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishin ...

, 1975) *Slawenski, Kenneth. ''J.D. Salinger: A Life'' (New York:

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

, 2010)
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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Burnett, Whit 1899 births 1973 deaths American magazine editors American magazine publishers (people) Writers from New York (state) 20th-century American non-fiction writers Columbia University faculty American magazine founders