ALAN SWALLOW A TRIBUTE

By 1961, Anaïs Nin’s efforts to find an American publisher for her work had been in vain for more than twenty years. Her agent, Gunther Stuhlmann, once said, “I couldn’t sell Anaïs on 42nd Street.” As a lark, Nin contacted Alan Swallow, the small publisher with a reputation for relentlessness and who worked out of his garage in Denver, Colorado. What follows is Swallow’s letter to Nin agreeing to be her publisher, which marked the dawn of her eventual success.

March 6, 1961

Dear Anaïs,

I have now read the materials you sent me, including the manuscript of the new novel which came from Mr. Gunther Stuhlmann. (I am sending a copy of this letter to Mr. Stuhlmann as your agent.) I think it makes just about perfect sense that I become your U.S. publisher. The sales of your works have apparently demonstrated that they are not suitable or of interest to the large commercial publishers. Yet, there is a kind of victimization involved for an author to be handled by too many smallish “avant garde” publishers—who seem to be fly-by-night much of the time, who appeal to a certain clientele (an avid one but a limited and changeable one); or for you to be attempting self publication of the works. I fall in between. I don’t manage the very large, large sales; but I am a determined and persistent devil, and I manage a very respectable sale for the materials in which I am interested. (Indeed, for many books I feel that my methods will get more sales over a period of time than can be achieved by others—for I have seemed to develop them for the kind of work in which I am interested, which I find will not support themselves well upon a publishing situation of high overhead, etc., but are quite satisfying to me and, in the end, to the author.) As I say, for the kind of sales which seems to me your destiny in this country, I feel that I am in a better situation than anyone else. I am loyal to my titles; I keep them in print if humanly possible (for example, such a book as Winters’ In Defense of Reason, which bigwigs in NY publishing told me I could not sell in 2,000 quantity, is now in its third edition, has sold more than 5,000 copies and still sells as fast as it ever did; and 8 years ago I did his Collected Poems, stuck with them, sold them out, then in 1960 reissued a new, slightly augmented edition, placed it both in cloth and in Swallow Paperbooks, and it won the big Bollingen Prize for 1960 and was one of 13 finalists for the National Book Award in poetry.). This is the sort of thing I can do better, I feel, than other publishers and is the particular role I can play in the over-all field of publishing. Furthermore, I publish only what I admire, and everybody knows this; and I admire your work. So it should be a fairly good “wedding” of work and publisher, I think. I shall hope so, anyway! [...]

(By the way, also, if my idea about the stories is good—you may wish to let them go out of print after you lift the 2 novelettes from Under a Glass Bell—what would such a volume be called?)

All right, in summary: I am willing to embark on the long-range project for your work as it seems best. First steps would be preparation of a contract for Seduction of the Minotaur, your indication of exact stock you have of the material in print, and your cost figure for that stock, and its exact condition—cloth, paper, unbound sheets, etc.; signature of contracts covering rights and royalties upon such stock; signature of contracts for books “intended” as above. I am indicating my willingness, even my eagerness to do this. I would sign any contracts, of course, after seeing your willingness in the over-all plan and the particular contracts, etc., that is, that they be such that I can approve. I don’t think we would have any problems there. The big problem now is the ultimate intent and then the development of the plans.

Cordially,
Alan Swallow†

Alan Swallow published all of Nin’s fiction and was co-publisher of The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume One, which was the book that propelled her to fame. Swallow died at the age of 50 at his typewriter only weeks after the diary’s release. He remains an inspiration to small publishers far and wide.

†Excerpted from Volume 4 of A Café in Space: The Anaïs Nin Literary Journal.