Want to adopt William Faulkner? Or Ishmael Reed? How about Gertrude Stein? Or Zora Neale Hurston? Or John Barth? Or Edgar Allan Poe?
What if you could link your name with that of a great writer? Or with hundreds of great writers?
After all, that’s how Henry Wriothesley, the earl of Southampton, found his niche in history; he bankrolled Shakespeare.
Or take Lorenzo de Medici. For all his power in Renaissance Florence, he’s probably best remembered today as the patron of Michelangelo.
Now, two non-profit publishing houses, aimed at preserving the best in literature — the Library of America and the Normal, Ill.-based Dalkey Archive Press — have come up with a new twist on that old idea. Actually, several new twists. And you don’t have to be the ruler of an Italian city-state or a member of the British nobility to take part.
For amounts ranging from $250 to $50,000, book lovers can become art patrons — patrons of the art of literature. They can adopt a particular book by a particular favorite writer and guarantee that it will always stay in print. Or, like a literary Santa Claus, they can donate an entire set of great works at cut-rate prices to a school or library.
“The goal is to get these great materials out into the bloodstream of everyday life,” says Donald Oresman, a New York attorney and art collector.
Adopting an author
Under the Library of America’s Guardians of American Letters program, Oresman and his wife, Patricia, ponied up $50,000 to ensure that the LOA’s one-volume collection of the novels and stories of the much-overlooked 19th Century Maine writer Sarah Orne Jewett would remain available forever. (Or, at least, as long as the Library of America exists.)
Why Jewett?
“The first reason was: We’re admirers of hers,” Oresman says. “The second reason was that she is relatively unknown and therefore unlikely to be underwritten by someone else.”
And there was a third reason: Oresman and his wife are so enthusiastic for the LOA series that “we would have picked anybody. I can’t think of a book that the Library of America has published that Patricia and I wouldn’t have been glad to underwrite.”
A hard fact of modern-day publishing is that, while many works of great literature are perennial best sellers, others fall through the cracks, lacking a wide enough readership to become or stay commercially successful. That’s where the LOA and the Dalkey Archive Press come in.
Cultural treasures
The two publishers are rooted in the notion that some books are more than commodities or passing entertainments, and should be seen as cultural treasures that are as necessary to preserve and maintain as historic landmarks and architectural gems.
With the New York City-based Library of America, the goal is to publish America’s best and most significant writing. And, since 1982, the organization has produced 124 volumes, nearly all of which are collections of an author’s work rather than simply one of her or his books.
The idea is that, while Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick” will always be available, his lesser-known books, such as “Redburn” and “White-Jacket” don’t have that guarantee. So those three novels were published together in one LOA volume.
Neither that volume, by the way, nor the other two LOA Melville books have been adopted. Nor have any of the three James Fenimore Cooper volumes, or the Theodore Dreiser book, or those that collect the writings of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Steinbeck.
“The Walt Whitman volume is not adopted either,” says Cheryl J. Hurley, the Library of America chief executive. “Go figure.”
In fact, 85 of the LOA’s volumes are still available. With a $50,000 contribution, you can take your choice — and have your name inscribed on a special acknowledgment page in every future edition of that volume.
Books that challenge
While the LOA program has been quietly under way for more than three years, the Dalkey Archive effort is just getting started, and the price tag for adopting a book is going to be lower — just $25,000.
Dalkey Archive, which has published more than 225 books since 1984, is seeking to preserve a different sort of literature — literature outside the mainstream, the kind that pushes the boundaries of art, that challenges its readers with new forms or ideas or approaches. (The only author included in the catalogs of both publishers is Gertrude Stein.)
In addition, Dalkey Archive’s books include not just U.S. authors, such as Barth and Reed, but also great writers from other nations, including Louis-Ferdinand Celine (France), Flann O’Brien (Ireland) and Severo Sarduy (Cuba).
Under another patronage program, you can donate every single one of the Dalkey Archive books to the school or library of your choice for $1,000 — a 72 percent savings off the cover prices. That’s what psychiatrist Jonathan Cohen did earlier this year, sending the set to East High School in Denver, where his son and daughter graduated several years ago.
Cohen says he’s a fan of Dalkey Archive, in part, because they published five books by his wife, fabulist Rikki Ducornet, but, even more, because “they’re challenging conventional ways of thinking. There’s a strong intellectual commitment to thinking critically.”
Cohen, an author himself — his book rebutting traditional Freudian approaches, “Apart from Freud,” was published by City Lights in August — adds, “It’s one of my own acts of subverting a greed-driven culture to do what I can to promote a different ethos [by supporting Dalkey Archive].”
`Simply enablers’
The Library of America has a similar donation program, offering an entire set of books for $3,100, or $25 apiece, a discount of about 37 percent. Smaller numbers of books can be donated at the same lower price, down to 10 volumes for $250. And, in most cases, a bookplate will be inserted in the front of the books with the name of the donor.
Martin E. Segal, the chairman emeritus of Lincoln Center, who adopted the volume of Thomas Jefferson’s writings under LOA’s Guardians program, says it’s “very pleasant” to have his name associated with the great statesman.
“But, in the final analysis, it’s the book that’s of consequence,” he says. “We are simply enablers.”
