An excerpt from Lloyd C. Douglas, “In Re Sermons on Wages,” The Christian Century, 5/12/1921.
[The following is from a Christian Century article by Lloyd Douglas entitled, “In Re Sermons on Wages.” It was published in the May 12, 1921, issue, a little over a year after the end of the First World War. Douglas writes:]
“The Parable of the Talents is a delightful setting for a sermon today. It amply repays any amount of study the preacher may care to put upon it. It contains some very effective medicine for all parties concerned in the present conflict. There may be some doubt as to how far one may properly go in attempting to utilize this story for modern purposes; but suppose it read as follows:
“For the state of industry is as a man traveling into a far country, who called his own employees and delivered unto them his goods; and unto one he gave five talents, and to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey.
“And it came to pass that he was no more than out of sight than the local secretary of a labor union came that way and called a meeting and did organize those servants. And it was No. 456, Talent Workers’ Assocation. Nor did he go unrewarded who had done for them this thing.
“Now it befell that when each worker discovered what his brethren had received, he recked naught of the difference between their several ability and skill and experience, but thought only of the discrimination made among them; and thereafter they dwelt not exceeding happy together.
“Then he that had received five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. Likewise he that had received two talents, he also gained other two. But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his employer’s money. After a long time, the employer of those servants cometh and reckoneth with them.
“And it came to pass that they appeared before him, saying, ‘Thou deliveredst unto us five and two and one talents, totaling eight. Behold, we have gained, beside them, five and two talents more, making seven. Grand total, fifteen.’
“Now the employer said within himself, ‘I had thought to receive eight talents on this investment. Lo, these men have taken advantage of me, by about 12 and a half percent.’ And he did speak his mind unto them to the same effect.
“Then he that had received five talents, and had gained other five, bowed his head and was speechless; for, albeit he was honest and industrious, he was organized. Likewise he that received two talents, and had gained other two, dared not speak; for he had passed his word to be a regular fellow, and not tattle. And it came to pass that he who had been a lazy slacker did also hold his peace; moreover he did grin, slyly, the while he leaned upon the spade wherewith he had exhumed the buried talent; and did put his tongue in his cheek and say within himself, ‘Verily, were it not for this blessed organization, I would now lose my job. Long live No. 456, Talent Workers’ Association!'”
[Douglas continues:]
“No! In this case five talents and two talents and one talent do not make eight – any more than five talents, and two honest men, and one hole in the ground make eight! It isn’t fair to anybody – not even to the idler, whose character, as a citizen, should be safeguarded, if he himself hasn’t the manliness to do it without assistance.
“Now – suppose we turn this parable around, and see how it looks from the other side.”
A page from Lloyd C. Douglas, “Saving the Minister’s Soul,” The Christian Century, 4/14/1921.
[The following is from the article, “Saving the Minister’s Soul,” which Lloyd Douglas published in The Christian Century in the April 14, 1921, issue. He is speaking to his fellow ministers about how they can find inspiration even in their busy lives. He writes:]
“In every congregation, there are a few elderly folk who are living on the income of spiritual capital amassed in days before we became too busy to take counsel of our hearts. I used to know a little old lady who was blind; that is, her physical organs of sight were not functioning. The eyes of her soul were very keen. I looked forward with keen delight to the next visit in her humble home. She always expressed gratitude that the minister called so frequently and stayed a while; but I never brought her anything to be compared with the treasures I carried away. Some of these fine old saints are prepared to do great things for us if we approach them properly. How often we rush in, pat them on the shoulder, tell them what a whale of a sermon we preached last Sunday, wish them well, and run away – tatting up another good deed done to ‘the sick and imprisoned’ – when, by sitting quietly at their feet and encouraging them to do the talking, we might have come away with a fresh sense of the glory of the human spirit and the desirableness of a life that is ‘hid with Christ in God.’
“If we only stopped long enough to think about it, the bereaved have rich treasures for us of an inspirational character. How little we make use of them, for our own good, in the moments when grief has fairly transfigured their lives! How we do imagine that we must, ourselves, do all the talking, apparently never dreaming that it is our business, at such times, to stand with bowed head and expectant heart, waiting for a message lifted up on the wings of pain.”
[Douglas will continue his essay in my next post…]
An excerpt from “The Bread Problem,” an editorial in the February 17, 1921, issue of The Christian Century, written anonymously by Lloyd C. Douglas.
[This is the conclusion of an editorial, “The Bread Problem,” which Douglas wrote without a by-line for The Christian Century’s February 17, 1921, issue. After briefly surveying the problem of hunger in the aftermath of the First World War, he narrated Christ’s first temptation in the wilderness, to make bread out of stones. He writes:]
“From that scene in the Jeshimon Wilderness, Anno Domini 30, let us return and take another glance at what we have before us in the early spring of 1921. Exactly how did our world get into its present miseries? We say that is an economic question. But is it? Well – say that the immediate cause of it was the war. Well – how did the world get itself head-over-ears in war? By walking in the ways of righteousness and brotherhood? By efforts at spiritual culture? By reliance upon his guidance who continually endeavors to attract our attention to the truth about human relationships? No; we got into war – the whole brood of nations – excusing nobody, laying the blame at every door impartially – through indifference to the cultivation of those principles which Jesus said would make for permanent peace!
“Even now – with so ghastly and complete a demonstration of the fact that war solves no problems whatsoever; that war not only wastes while it is waged but leaves a slimy trail behind it through uncounted years – there are plenty of us advocating more costly armies, more big gunboats, more deadly poison gas! In all the welter and wreckage – face to face with the problem of the world’s starvation – still – still – ‘armi virumque cano!’ [‘I sing of arms and men’: the opening line of Virgil’s Aeneid.]
“Fully satisfied that organized greed and diabolical selfishness have not only foisted war upon the world, time after time, but have stood by to loot the pockets of its victims while they went forth hypnotized to death by appeals to their patriotism, still do we sit, complacently, declaring that the world’s chief difficulty is ‘a problem in economics.’ Economics? Nonsense! The world’s problem, today, is a spiritual problem! Humanity’s soul must be saved!
“What may we do about it? There is much that we can do. We can turn the searchlight in upon ourselves to see how far we, as individuals, are menaced by this temptation to believe that our own problems are questions in economics! Do I live by bread alone? What inspired to my choice of a life work – bread alone? For what reasons have I gathered friends about me – that they may use me, or I them? Have I cultivated them for bread alone? Is success, to my thinking, the sort of thing that has cornered some market; stacked up corn in warehouses against years of idleness; nailed down natural resources to make them inaccessible to other hands as fully entitled to them as myself?
“We do well who, through these Lenten days, assay the ore of our own characters and assist other people to test the quality of their motives to see if, perchance, we who have talked so volubly and knowingly of humanity’s great needs – the causes of its distress; the reasons of its hunger – may not be housing and arming the forces which make these problems more and more acute and perplexing.
“The Master found the complex problem of the world a simple spiritual problem at its root. Taking counsel of the God in his own heart, he found that man does not live by bread alone, but by the discernment and acceptance of his will who ‘standeth behind our lattice, keeping watch over his own.'”
[This last sentence was probably a quotation from memory (and therefore not quite accurately) of a line from James Russell Lowell’s 1845 poem, “The Present Crisis.” The poet complains of:
“Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,— Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.”
This same poem contains the all-important line, “New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth.” Douglas would quote that line repeatedly throughout the 1940s, very much aware that it was necessary to stop Hitler’s armies, despite everything he said in this 1921 editorial.]
From the title page of Lloyd C. Douglas, “Wanted – A Congregation; Fifth Phase – Making Worship Worshipful,” in the 9/9/1920 issue of The Christian Century.
[During the summer of 1920, Lloyd Douglas published a series of articles in the Christian Century under the heading, “Wanted – A Congregation.” The following is from the last installment of this series, which was published on September 9, 1920.]
“One of our recently rich was touring what remains of France with his overdressed family, two maids, a Pekinese pup, and a valet whom he addressed as ‘Jim’ and by whom he was fond of being addressed as ‘Bill.’ This man understood that it was the proper thing to visit historic shrines, to view celebrated paintings, and to make appreciative noises before notable sculptured figures of the great; and all this he did because it was the proper thing. Lacking a background of historical information and the lore of the arts, however, he was experiencing considerable disappointment. Unable to look through a stone figure and quite on past it for a distance of five hundred years to the causes and conditions which had had more to do with its production than the genius of the artist, to his untutored mind it was merely a huge chunk of rock which somebody with an unfamiliar and unpronounceable name had once hacked at with a chisel.
“One day he pulled loose from his party and went alone into one of the most widely known of the picture galleries. He did not provide himself with a catalog, nor did he seek the advice of attendants relative to the masterpieces on view. He rushed about the place like a stranger hunting for the proper ticket window in a metropolitan railroad station, pausing occasionally, for an instant, to lean over a railing and dart a hurried, hummingbird glance at some priceless work of art before scurrying away to peck at another. Within twenty minutes, he had his fill of the place and was quite ready to take leave of it. On his way out, he spied the elderly verger sitting by a window, reading. Prompted by that raw insolence which sudden wealth seems usually to bestow upon the proletarian mind, it occurred to this man that he might ease his annoyance somewhat by baiting the old gentleman; so he approached him, and assuming a posture as nearly simulating hauteur as an ex-blacksmith’s imagination could devise, he snarled, ‘I’ve been hearing all my life about these famous masterpieces. Masterpieces – bah! Daubs, I call ’em! Old trash! May have pleased, once upon a time – but not today! I want you to know that I have been disappointed!’ Whereupon the verger put down his book, polished his glasses, and, having regarded the noisy tourist for some moments in silence, replied quietly, ‘Sir, these pictures are not on trial; the spectators are!‘”
The following is from “A Suggested Valedictory for Class Day at AnyCollege,” by Lloyd C. Douglas, in the June 1920 issue of The Intercollegian (the monthly magazine of the YMCA). Douglas had already done something similar a year earlier under the title, “A Truthful Commencement Address,” given by the college president. This time he’s pretending to be a member of the graduating class:
“Honorable Board of Directors, Members of the Faculty, Distinguished Guests, Alumni, Fond Parents, Fellow Students, Dear Classmates, Ladies and Gentlemen, and — have I forgotten anybody, I wonder?
“We are about through. One more long, trying session in these flowing robes — appropriately so-called because of their perspiration-exciting capacities — and we shall float out of them upon the sea of life.
“It is a well-known fact among us that only a few skippers of our gladsome fleet are aware of their next port of call. Most of us are concerned with the business immediately at hand — that of standing on the bridge, waving our handkerchiefs to the crowd on the wharf.
“Personally, I have an uneasy misgiving about my cargo. For some years, the stevedores have been dumping it into my hold, and I have stood by, checking the items: two B’s of this, three A’s of that, and ten C’s of something else, with an occasional D or two of something else — but making no effort to store the stuff in a manner that may permit of its being unloaded. Indeed, as I have looked into the hold now and again, of late, I have been quite worried over the problem. I find that I have been considering certain consignments as mere dunnage which really are of great value. There are huge bales of priceless wares chucked down in the bilge, probably water-soaked and half rotten by this time, that I could market for a fine price if only I had known earlier how important it was to preserve them.
“Moreover, I have my cabin piled high with boxes and cartons of merchandise which, a little while ago, seemed tremendously valuable, but now appear to be useless.
“I recall with a shudder how I laughed on the day that the big bale labeled ‘Political Economy’ broke loose from the grappling hooks and fell through to the very keel of me and smashed; and I said, ‘Oh, well; it amounts to little anyway! Let it lie!’ That same day, I was toting up to my stateroom packages of stuff which were so precious I wouldn’t let anyone else touch them — all about the movie stars, the latest crinkle in jazz, the last sartorial yip from the haberdashery.
“I would give much today if I might escape this Turkish bath for a few hours to dig about in my hold and lay hands upon some of the discarded and water-logged possessions of mine and fish them out.
“But that seems impossible. The engines are chug-chugging, and the band is um-pah-ing, and our admiring friends are bidding us ‘Bon voyage!’ We must be true to form and see the event through, according to the best traditions. Forgive us for wearing serious faces. We cannot help being reflective. Every mother’s son of us knows that he is embarking with a badly-distributed ballast.
“As for myself, I am aware that there isn’t a scrap of machinery in me capable of hoisting a single bale of my cargo up out of the hold. I hooted at the Literary Society and called the Oratorical Association funny names. I never learned how to speak in public and am considerably at a disadvantage when it comes to expressing myself clearly in private. I do not know how to write, convincingly or any other way. It is difficult for me to compose a readable letter of fifteen lines. In other words, I am full of knowledge up to my quarter deck, and I have no equipment for disgorging it.
“O ye who follow us — a word with you! Be careful how you store your cargo. Don’t emulate our folly who have debated, hours, on the respective merits of Gish and Pickford; who wrote long editorials admonishing the local play-houses against showing such an excessive amount of advertisements on the screen to the loss of our time who had come rather to see Deadeye Pete and Mexico Jake save the life of the Queen of Bronco Bill’s Dive; who had no time for concerts, lectures, art exhibits, or the paleontological museum — half ashamed, indeed, to be caught with an interest in such things — I say, don’t try to perpetuate our foolishness!
“Store your cargo so that you can get at it again. Be sure that you rig some windlasses and donkey-engines on your decks, to be used at various ports! And Heaven help you if you toss down into the bilge-water merchandise of great value. I know some of you. Already well on toward committing the same blunder that today causes us unrest. Nobody could persuade you to appear in a collar one-quarter inch too high — and you pooh-pooh the idea of trying to find out what ails Russia!
“Farewell! We are off! In many respects, we have been off all along. Farewell! Just toss that rear hawser in, will you? That’s a good fellow! Thanks!”
On November 30, 1919, at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor, Lloyd Douglas reviewed a book by architect Ralph Adams Cram entitled, Walled Towns. That was also the title of Douglas’s sermon, but it wasn’t actually a sermon; just a book review. In fact, Douglas didn’t even give his own opinions about the book; he just read large portions of it. He had already sent out a brochure about the sermon in advance, however, and had made clear in that circular that he thought Cram’s book was important and deserving of everyone’s attention.
Looking back on this sermon a century later, I don’t see anything of importance in Cram’s book. Perhaps I’m missing something. He said that history moves in distinct 500-year waves, in which one civilization rises and falls, then another takes its place, with the intervening years being periods in which monasticism flourishes within “walled towns.” I’m not convinced that that’s true, but I’m especially not impressed by Cram’s prediction that the present world order would come crashing down by the year 2000, or that monastic conclaves would make survival possible.
For our purposes, though, the question is what this book meant to Lloyd Douglas; and that, too, is a mystery. Douglas was a modernist; Cram was a medievalist. Douglas saw history as progress; Cram believed in recurring cycles. Douglas believed in the power of individuals to change the world; Cram was (apparently) deterministic.
But there was something about Cram’s book that excited Douglas’s imagination — and it had to do with Cram’s dividing of history into 500-year epochs.
In this diagram, Cram represented history as an ebb-and-flow in which civilizations rose and fell (A), with monasticism playing an important role during each crisis moment (B). What seems to have interested Douglas was Cram’s predictions about the next two decades (the 1920s and 30s), and especially his prediction of the fall of the present civilization by the year 2000. We know that this book stimulated Douglas’s thinking because he mentioned it again in an article he published in the YMCA’s monthly newsletter. Also, a book reviewer some years later would recall hearing Douglas speaking about this rise-and-fall diagram during a lecture in Chicago around this same time.
Why is this important? Because it strongly influenced Douglas’s novel Green Light, which was published fifteen years later. In the following passage, we can see Douglas’s more mature reflections on Cram’s thesis. This is from Chapter 13, pages 214-217 in the original printing. At a dinner party, Dean Harcourt of Trinity Cathedral has been asked to share his views on the cycles of history:
“‘It all goes back at last,’ [the Dean says], ‘to the engaging story of the Long Parade. We must break our bad habit of talking about human progress as if it were a gradual upward journey from the jungle to Utopia. It isn’t quite that simple. We’ll have to think of that upward course in terms of planes, as if mankind proceeded on a series of steps up –‘
“‘Like climbing a terrace?’ [someone asks].
“‘Exactly! The half-dozen generations comprising a certain era will move along rather uneventfully, at times almost apathetically, on an approximately level plane. The upheavals, revolutions, and excitements of climbing up out of the era immediately preceding will already have become legendary. In this particular economic and political set-up that we are considering, customs crystallize rapidly into laws, the laws take on dignity and resolve themselves into codes, constitutions, charters. Manners beget morals. Traditions become established. After a while, there is a well-defined group of reliances: the State, the Church, hero worship, ceremonials; norms — the norms of beauty in art, norms of gallantry in conflict, norms of social conduct, norms of intellectual fitness… Very well. Then — when everything has become neatly integrated and the Parade has had its relatively serene period of recuperation from the now almost forgotten struggle of the climb to the level on which it is traveling, it wants to look out! — for the time has come for the taking of another steep grade!
“‘Customarily, these sharp ascents have been made within the space of a single generation. Sometimes it has taken a little longer — but not often. The people who are called upon to make the climb up to the next level unquestionably get a more comprehensive view of the Great Plan for humanity’s eventual destiny than is possible for the people who live midway of an era when things are, as we would say, normal. In the course of this rough scrambling up to the next plane of living, practically all of the old reliances are under heavy stress. Long-respected statues are found to be obsolete and obstructive. Emergency measures of an economic nature inevitably upset the morals which had prevailed — for the ethical imperatives of a given time are, in most cases, the product of economic conditions. Cherished dogmas, vital and useful yesterday but now defunct, are skinned and stuffed for museums. Art — supposedly long, in relation to the fleetingness of Time — yields to the clamor for reappraisal, along with everything else.'”
A little later he adds that “the people who happen to be in the line of march when Destiny determines that a grade is to be taken may be no better, no stronger than their fathers; no fitter than their sons. They just happen to be in and of the long Parade when it arrives at the foot of the ascending hill…’
“‘Hard on the old folks,’ grinned Mr. Sinclair.
“‘Quite!… Whatever sympathy may be felt for bewildered Youth on these occasions, the people in the Parade who find the climb most difficult and painful are the mature. For they have learned all they know about living under the more or less stable and predictable regimentation of the long plateau over which they have come. It does strange things to them as individuals. The same degree of heat required to refine gold will utterly consume a pine forest — and that doesn’t mean that a pine forest is of no value. In such periods of transition many individuals who, in a normal time, might have been very useful, crumple into defeat. Many others who, under normal circumstances, might have lived mediocre lives, endure the unusual with high distinction.'”
Someone remarks that this new age “gives the youngsters a chance”:
“‘Who are too immature,’ said the Dean, ‘for such a responsibility. So — they all go scrambling up the hill, everybody talking at once, rather shrilly. And at length, they reach the top and come out upon a broad plateau; write off their losses, tie up their bruises, mend their tattered boots, and the Long Parade trudges on. New customs settle into laws. New codes are framed. New constitutions written. New moral standards are agreed upon…. And then –‘
“‘Another half-dozen generations of that,’ assisted Norwood.
“‘Yes — and when everything has become nicely articulated again in that era, so that the people know practically what to expect of their institutions, their schools, their banks, their parliaments, their methods of transportation, communication, propaganda, social welfare; then you need to look out! It’s about time to take another grade!’
Yes, says the Dean, “‘…we are taking one of these grades now. It isn’t asked of us whether or not we would like to be members of the Long Parade during this brief period of hard climbing. We are members of it. And the only option extended to us as individuals is our privilege to determine whether we prefer to be dragged up — in which case we are an obstacle and a liability — or to proceed under our own power…'”
When Houghton Mifflin published this book in 1935, Douglas drew an illustration for his editor, showing him the general idea. His editor, Rich Kent, liked the drawing so well, he used it as the “end-papers” for the book (the inside cover). Here are those pages as they appeared in the original printing:
The end-papers (inside cover) of Douglas’s novel Green Light (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1935).
Douglas didn’t want readers to think that he believed life was “a bed of roses.” He wanted them to know that there was some hard climbing ahead. And there was… for they were in the middle of the Great Depression, and the Second World War was already on the horizon.
I’ve been talking about the reasons the novel Magnificent Obsession became a bestseller after its release in the fall of 1929. One very important reason was the fact that it was a medical drama. We’re used to that sort of thing now; it seems like there’s always, at any time, at least one current TV series set in a hospital. But in 1929, it was rare for novelists to be able to write authoritatively about the lives of doctors and nurses.
As Reader’s Digest editor Charles Ferguson would later write in Cosmopolitan Magazine, “So authentic and convincing are the medical passages in the novels of Doctor Lloyd Cassel Douglas that not a few of the thousands of letters he receives each year are addressed to him as a medico. These letters detail the clinical histories of people who have suffered many things and now come to him as a last resort. Nor is this surprising. Every reference he makes to a disease or its treatment is invariably checked by the best authorities. Moreover, while Lloyd Douglas never studied medicine, he has read avidly on medical topics since early college days when the hankering to be a doctor first laid hold on him” (Charles W. Ferguson, “Lloyd C. Douglas, Cosmopolite,” Cosmopolitan, November 1938, p. 8).
And doctors noticed.
The magazine, American Medicine, printed a review of Magnificent Obsession. “This is one of the most unusual novels we have read in a long time,” the reviewer said – and it must have been unusual, indeed, for a novel of any kind to be reviewed in a medical journal. The reviewer explains why it seemed appropriate: “The setting for the story is medical throughout, and remarkably true to life, even to the accurate description of the latest technique in blood transfusion…. Whether one regards this book as a theme story or as a human-interest novel, it is well worth reading, especially for those in the medical profession or associated with it. The present reviewer, in fact, picked up the volume one night after dinner, and could not bring himself to put it down until he had reached the last page many hours later.”
Another medical journal, The Canadian Lancet and Practitioner, also gave the book a positive review.
And doctors wrote to Douglas. On one occasion Douglas compiled some blurbs from his fan mail and gave them to his publisher for possible use in advertising. (This can be found in the Jewell Stevens File, Moore Library, Special Collections, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.) Here is one of those comments:
“From a prominent physician in Oklahoma City: ‘I have read this book through twice; parts of it several times more. The medical references are correct; excellent! What percent of this book is fiction?'” (That question at the end must have made Douglas smile.)
As I mentioned in earlier posts, Douglas was well-connected with the faculty at the University of Michigan Medical School during his days in Ann Arbor, from 1915 to 1921, and he stayed in touch with some of them. One was Dr. G. Carl Huber, who was Dean of the University of Michigan’s graduate school when Magnificent Obsession came out, but for many years before that was a respected faculty member at the medical school, well known for his work in neurosurgery. Carl Huber makes an appearance in Chapter 8 of Magnificent Obsession. Bobby Merrick, who is going through medical training, gushes about his Anatomy professor, whom he calls “old Huber.” He tells Nancy Ashford:
“And old Huber’s a prince! He handles those poor cadavers as if they were our relatives. I’ll bet if some of them had been given as much tender consideration while alive as Huber gives them in the lab, they might have lived longer… Buries their ashes, Huber does, at the end of the semester… conventional interment – bell, book and clergy… Contends that these paupers and idiots and criminals, however much they may have burdened their communities while they lived, have so completely discharged their obligation to society by their service in the lab, that they deserve honorable burial… A fine old boy is Huber, believe me!”
Douglas sent a copy of the novel to Huber and received the following letter back, dated November 11, 1929:
“My dear Dr. Douglas:
“Thank you very sincerely for the copy of your novel, Magnificent Obsession. The book came to the laboratory and was taken to the house and read by Mrs. Huber before I had a chance to really see it. She, and other members of the family, pointed with real pride to a certain page on which you referred to me. It is nice of you to think of me in this way, and although I have a recollection that I once stated that you might refer to the incident if you did not use my name, that was long ago, and I will pretend that I have forgotten, as I see you did forget. I am taking the spirit of it as sincere.
“I enjoyed the book as a whole very much. I found it quite worthwhile reading. Your characters are not all creatures of the imagination – I have met them, and all have interest. The entire novel is worked out very nicely, and I enjoyed it more knowing its author and having recognition of his worth.”
That last paragraph is especially interesting, since it tells us that other characters besides Dr. Huber were based on real people at the University of Michigan Medical School.
Incidentally, Douglas mentioned Dr. Huber in an article in the Akron Times-Press. After briefly describing the passage in the book about him, Douglas said, “I had a letter from him the other day. He said he was surprised to find himself in a novel he was reading without a thought that the story had any relation to him. That would be a funny sensation, wouldn’t it?” I gather, instead, that Dr. Huber was a bit chagrined at seeing his name in a novel when he had probably just expected Douglas to use the incident in a sermon sometime.
At any rate, the medical connection helped boost sales of the book, not only because doctors and other health professionals became interested in it, but also because the general public liked such stories. As a reviewer in the Chicago Herald Examiner wrote, “Its story has many reasons for general appeal.” The first reason he gives is this: “It concerns the always fascinating atmosphere of medicine and surgery.”
But there is a more specific way in which the medical aspect helped generate interest in the book: in the novel, Merrick achieves a technological breakthrough in brain surgery that was actually occurring in real life at that time. I’ll tell you more about that in my next post.
In November 1929, just after the crash of the New York Stock Exchange, a gaudy-colored book with an enigmatic title was released to the world by a little-known publishing company in Chicago, far from all the action. It would take a year and a half for the industry to notice its appearance, but another year later they’d treat the book as a phenomenon. Noel Busch, in an article for Life Magazine, called Magnificent Obsession “a publishing miracle.”
There was little about the book that would attract readers. The publisher’s description on the cover was completely unhelpful. “A novel of strong color and varied interests,” they said, “dealing with strange, transforming life forces.” If books are truly judged by their covers, this one might have turned off a lot of people. What was the book about? And why should we care?
The inside flyleaf was more effective. It elaborated on the theme of mystery…
“Within the first third of the book,” it said, “you come to this…”
‘I wonder what was on that page.’
He laughed. ‘That was what Hudson wanted to know. Now it’s your question – and mine.’ He gripped her arm in strong fingers. ‘And – no matter how stiffly we revolt against this thing, we’re sure to be sneaking back to it.’
She nodded without looking up. ‘It’s likely to make us as nutty as he was!’
Bobby strolled to the window… ‘I can’t afford to dabble in such stuff! You can go into it if you want to. I’m out!’
Nancy’s voice was husky.
‘You’ll not be able to get away from it! You’re too far in! It’s got you! … A form of insanity, maybe; but you may as well come along – first as last!’
It reads like a detective novel. What have they gotten into? Sounds dangerous. And sexy. A man, a woman. He grips her arm. She has a husky voice. The whole thing has a seductive quality, drawing us in. What the woman says to the man is really meant for us: “It’s got you! You may as well come along…”
But first we have to become interested enough to pick up the ugly orange book and read the flyleaf. (Sorry. Maybe you like orange. Maybe it made people want to pick it up and read it. It certainly was “a book of strong color.” My own opinion, however, is that it would have appeared gaudy, especially since bookstores at first displayed it in their Religion section, where only ministers and very religious people tended to browse.)
The fact that the book became both a bestseller and a classic (and is still in print a century later) is indeed a “publishing miracle.” But thanks to Douglas’s scrapbooks and correspondence, we can analyze how it all unfolded. Over the next dozen posts, I’ll give a detailed explanation: the anatomy of a publishing miracle.
