Background
Eugene was born on August 11, 1884 at Baltimore, Maryland, United States, the youngest of nine children of Alexander and Rose (White) Saxton. His father, a physician, was of English descent. The family was Roman Catholic.
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Eugene was born on August 11, 1884 at Baltimore, Maryland, United States, the youngest of nine children of Alexander and Rose (White) Saxton. His father, a physician, was of English descent. The family was Roman Catholic.
Saxton was educated at Loyola College in Baltimore, beginning as a junior in its high school department in 1898. He received the A. B. degree in 1904. After graduation, he began the study of law at Georgetown University.
After studies, Eugene worked briefly as editor of the Baltimore Mirror, a weekly newspaper. He moved to New York City in 1906, to assist in preparing the first edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia.
In 1910 he entered the field of general book publishing, first with Doubleday, Page & Company, next (1917) with George H. Doran Company, where his duties as editor-in-chief for a time included editing the Bookman, and finally, in 1925, with Harper & Brothers. There he served until his death as head of the book editorial department, and in later years also as secretary and vice-president of the firm, working closely with the president, Cass Canfield.
Saxton presided over the publication of works of Aldous Huxley, Joseph Conrad, H. M. Tomlinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, O. E. Rolvaag, John Dos Passos, Thornton Wilder, and Amy Lowell. Among American authors whose initial books he guided into print were Ann Parrish, Glenway Wescott, Paul Horgan (all three of whom won the Harper Prize under his editorship), E. B. White, Richard Wright, and James Thurber.
As an officer of the house, he strongly defended the policy of Harper's Magazine against those who at times advised a less controversial editorial stand than that of Lee Hartman, the magazine's editor.
Saxton died in New York City at the age of fifty-eight after a long struggle with heart disease.
Eugene Francis Saxton was the vice-president of Harper & Brothers and was credited with reviving the house of Harper by expanding the scope of its trade publications and emphasizing the quality of its fiction list. He was often classed with Maxwell Perkins of Charles Scribner's Sons as one of the two great book editors of his day. Saxton presided over the publication of works of Aldous Huxley, Joseph Conrad, H. M. Tomlinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, O. E. Rolvaag and others. In his memory the house of Harper established the Eugene F. Saxton literary fellowship, to award occasional financial aid to young authors engaged in creative writing.
(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
Saxton was a man of medium height and rather stocky build, whose light blue eyes could express sympathy, merriment, or compassion. His manner was calm, his speech deliberate, and his courtesy exquisite. His sense of humor could be lightly derisive, or affectionately reassuring.
He was a man of broad interests. Though he seemed a leisurely worker, he dealt with an impressive number of new manuscripts every week, as well as a large correspondence.
Once a book had been accepted, he rarely proposed editorial changes, preferring to trust the writer's judgment in creative matters. This sense of his sustaining belief in them brought his authors to their best achievement.
On November 14, 1912, at the church of St. Paul the Apostle in New York, Saxton was married to Martha Plaisted of Springfield, Ohio. Their sons were Mark, who became a novelist and editor, and Alexander Plaisted, who became a novelist and historian. Martha Saxton carried on a professional career, first as an editor of the periodical the World's Work and later as head of the English department of the Nightingale-Bamford School in New York City.
