O Lost

Thomas Wolfe’s first novel, titled O Lost, as submitted to the legendary editor Maxwell Perkins of Charles Scribner's Sons in 1928, contained 294,000 words. Perkins—the genius-spotter who already had F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway in his stable—was willing to gamble on its publication, but required Wolfe to make cuts, mainly for reasons of economy, but also to remove sideshows and bawdry. O Lost was not considered a selling title by Scribners, and Wolfe submitted Took Homeward, Angel, which was published in 1929With Wolfe unable to make the required excisions on his own, Perkins identified what he thought were the expendable passages; the final cuts were made by Wolfe, who then wrote the necessary bridging passages—which were sometimes longer than the deleted material....