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Ecco Press was an independent small-trade publisher known for presenting distinguished new work in international poetry and fiction writing through its books and its journal Antaeus, and for reissuing neglected classics in a variety of fields, including travel and food writing.
His search for financial backing for Antaeus led to the creation of Ecco Press in with co-founder and publisher Drue Heinz. Heinz retired in , transferring ownership of Ecco Press to Halpern, its editor-in-chief.
Ecco Press remained an independent firm, although affiliated with publishers Viking Press and W. The Ecco Press records contain correspondence, memoranda, administrative and financial records, typescripts, galleys, page proofs, bound books and periodicals, photographs, jacket art, posters, a sound recording and computer data storage that document the founding and day-to-day operations of the press. The records also reflect the personal life and career of Daniel Halpern as an editor, poet, teacher, anthologist, and prominent literary figure, as well as such literary activities as the National Poetry Series which Halpern ran out of the Ecco Press offices.
Halpern's papers contain correspondence, diaries, notebooks, writings, subject files and academic, financial and real estate papers. The acquisition of the Ecco Press by HarperCollins in marked the end of independence for one of the most important small trade publishers of the previous three decades. Under the direction of Daniel Halpern, through its books and acclaimed journal Antaeus , Ecco published the best new work of an internationally renowned cast of poets and fiction writers, while remaining committed to reintroducing neglected modern literary classics to the American reading public.
Daniel Halpern began his career as an editor when he started Antaeus in in Tangier, at the suggestion and with the help of Paul Bowles. During its 24 years of operation Antaeus -- published quarterly until when it became a biannual -- earned notable acclaim and influence in the literary community.
Other than occasional special issues of fiction, nature writing, humor, poetry, and travel writing, its issues consisted of an eclectic and international mix of fiction, poetry, and literary documents -- letters, journals, autobiographical fragments. Some of its contributors were well established, while others made their reputations through the journal.
Most notable writers who emerged during the s and s published their work in Antaeus. For a complete list of contributors see Index to Antaeus , Issue While Bowles contributed to the magazine regularly, acted as consulting editor, and continued to read galleys of each issue for the first seven or eight years of its publication, Halpern was Antaeus 's sole editor from the first issue.
To solicit contributions he wrote to prominent figures in literature, many of who were Bowles's friends, and was happily surprised at their generous responses. However, despite a well received first number, which included the work of Tennessee Williams, Lawrence Durrell, W. Bowles had personally financed Antaeus I.
While Palmer's support was timely, keeping the magazine alive temporarily, it had paid for the production of only one issue, and the survival of the journal remained in serious doubt.
Fortunately for Halpern and Antaeus , a copy of the premier issue had ended up in the hands of Drue Heinz who wrote to Halpern to subscribe. Halpern replied that lack of funds prohibited his acceptance of subscriptions for future issues and suggested that perhaps Heinz might be interested in financing the journal. Heinz arranged to meet with Halpern the next time she was in New York.
Heinz had been looking for an editor to start a magazine and had hoped to establish a publishing house for which she had already chosen the name Ecco Press.
At their meeting, she proposed to fund Antaeus on the condition that Halpern run this literary press for her. He agreed and Ecco was founded with Heinz as the publisher and Halpern the editor-in-chief. For the twenty years before her retirement in , Heinz kept in constant touch with Halpern, consulting on editorial as well as business decisions.
When Ecco was founded, Halpern had no experience in publishing other than his editing of the first two issue of Antaeus. He describes his first few years as editor-in-chief of Ecco as educating himself publicly.
For the most part, Halpern learned the publishing business on the job, although he depended on the patience and experience of several mentors. Halpern credits John Sankey at Villiers Publications in London, which printed the first fifteen issues of Antaeus ; with teaching him everything about the world of printing. When Heinz managed to secure Viking Press as Ecco's distributor, Halpern gained access to the guidance and advice of the larger publisher's editorial, production, and sales staff.
These two series firmly established Ecco's reputation as a literary publisher and its prominent place in the world of poetry. During its first decade, Ecco had a small staff, usually supplemented by part time and free lance workers, interns, and Viking staff. Antaeus and the Ecco Press were run out of the same office in Manhattan, which was also the base of operations for Halpern's many other literary activities and projects, such as cooperatives of small press publishers and the National Poetry Series, begun in See below for a short history of the N.
In an interview in , Halpern described Heinz's "primary concerns" as publisher: Publishers Weekly 30 July In the s, however, after flirting with dissolution, Ecco began to grow out of its small press status; or, rather, it began to redefine the parameters and scope of a small press and its output. In Viking and Ecco had decided to end their 10 year old relationship. It was not easy for Halpern to find a new publisher to distribute the press's books.
In fact, he had nearly resigned himself to closing the press when W. Norton agreed to take over distribution from Viking in This new relationship gave the press an immediate lift.
While in the preceding few years the number of books Ecco published had settled at sixteen to eighteen books a year, in , the scope and size of Ecco's list increased. It began to issue out-of-print, classic cookbooks as a culinary complement to its Neglected Books series. The decision to publish these books was not purely commercial: Halpern, a gourmand who had himself written a cookbook, a guide to restaurants in Italy, as well as several magazine pieces on food and wine, believed that making these texts available was as important as keeping classics of literature in print.
Nevertheless, the books did add to Ecco's list books that traditionally sold better than poetry and literary fiction. As time passed, cookbooks, new ones as well as reprints, became an important part of Ecco's output. By the Ecco's list had grown to twenty-five to thirty titles per year, and it's full time staff increased to three; poetry titles were selling at an average of cloth copies and paper copies; Ecco had just enjoyed a great success with Tobias Wolff's collection of stories In the Garden of the North American Martyrs ; and the press was moving to larger quarters on West 17th Street.
As Halpern put it at the time, "We're now smaller than a trade house but bigger than a small press". Publishers Weekly 18 December Halpern continued to expand the breadth of Ecco's list, doing more popular books such as Will Curtis's The Nature of Things in order to, as he explained, "balance the obscure Eastern European poetry".
The press later moved to Hopewell, New Jersey where it remained until it was bought in After Halpern became the publisher the pace of Ecco's growth increased. We either had to stay really small or move up".
Publishers Weekly 4 August Despite Ecco's increasing production and revenues, not to mention the critical acclaim and prizes enjoyed by its publications, by the mid-nineties Ecco was facing extinction.
In , Halpern decided to cease publication of Antaeus , which had always lost money for the press. In Halpern found two hands-on investors: Stephen Graham, who became the publisher, and Lea Simonds. Halpern's wife, Jeanne Wilmot Carter, who had been a practicing attorney, took on the role of president and associate publisher, essentially running the business side of Ecco.
These changes effected some positive change at the press: Still, Ecco continued to run at an almost constant deficit. In February the large trade publisher HarperCollins announced an agreement to acquire Ecco for an undisclosed price. The deal was expected to close on July 1, , at which time Ecco would become an imprint of HarperCollins. While the acquisition by HarperCollins meant that Ecco lost its independent status, Halpern believed it was the only way Ecco could continue its publishing program.
At the time of the acquisition's announcement Halpern commented, "It's nearly impossible to be an independent publisher, especially if you want to do the types of books we publish". Publishers Weekly 22 February Halpern estimated that the company had been in the black two or three times between and He pointed to the rising costs of purchasing rights to foreign titles, printing, and placing books in the large book store chains as major factors behind Ecco's financial woes.
At HarperCollins, Halpern became vice-president and editorial director of Ecco and served as executive editor of HarperCollins's adult trade division. As editor, poet, teacher, anthologist, and director and founder of the National Poetry Series see below for details , Halpern has played an important and active role in the American literary community since In addition to his work as editor-in-chief at Ecco Press, editor of Antaeus , and director of the graduate writing program at Columbia University, as of , Halpern was the author of eight collections of his own poetry.
His work appeared regularly in such magazines as The New Yorker. Halpern's career has been characterized by his efforts in support of the idea that the best literature, especially poetry, should find a publisher and an audience. He was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam war, working in a hospital in California. Halpern stayed in Tangier for two years, living in Jane Bowles's apartment while she was hospitalized in Spain and supporting himself by teaching at the American School.
It was during his second year in Morocco, , that Halpern and Bowles started work on Antaeus. Halpern moved to New York City in In New York he continued to edit Antaeus and later that year co-founded, with Drue Heinz, the Ecco Press, of which he became editor-in-chief. Concurrently, he was attending graduate school at Columbia where he studied with Mark Strand and Stanley Kunitz, receiving an M. In Halpern began his career as a teacher when he held poetry workshops at the New School; later he taught at Princeton.
In he became an assistant professor of writing at Columbia where in he was appointed chairman of the Writing Division. In , Halpern sold Ecco to HarperCollins, where he became vice-president and editorial director of Ecco, now an imprint of the larger house, and executive editor of HarperCollins's adult trade division.
The National Poetry Series N. In , speaking at the Library of Congress conference on the publication of poetry and fiction, Halpern proposed his plan for a national poetry series which would each year subsidize the publishing of books of poetry that might otherwise go unpublished.
In James Michener read Halpern's remarks in the conference's published proceedings. Michener contacted Halpern and promised to endow the N. The series was originally intended to encourage larger trade houses to publish more poetry. However, as the nature and business of publishing changed, the N.
In , the N. It also initiated a program of free book distribution in schools and prisons, and began organizing annual reading tours by series winners. The Ecco Press Records contain correspondence, memoranda, typescripts, galleys, page proofs, printed matter, photographs, financial records, and sound recordings that document the founding and day-to-day operations of the press.
The records also reflect the career of Daniel Halpern, Ecco's editor-in-chief and co-founder, as a poet, teacher, anthologist, and all-around literary ringleader, as well as the other literary activities, such as the National Poetry Series, run by Halpern out of the offices of the press. The author files comprise correspondence, typescripts, and other material, and reflect the authors' relationships with the press, its staff, and Halpern.
Interoffice communications, located throughout the records as well as in their own series, consist of business and personal notes, letters, and postcards between staff; readers reports; the Press's correspondence with its publisher, Drue Heinz; and Daniel Halpern's daily notes and agendas.
The business and administrative material documents Ecco's efforts to advertise, promote, produce, sell, distribute, ship and store its titles and Antaeus ; produce catalogs, organize events and readings, find funding through grant-giving institutions and individuals, control and sell the rights to the work it had published; and nominate its authors for prizes.