Who was Hemingway's long-time editor at Scribner's?

Maxwell Perkins was Hemingway’s long-time editor at Scribner’s. Perkins joined Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1910 and became one of the most influential American literary editors of the twentieth century.

Perkins first encountered Hemingway through F. Scott Fitzgerald, another writer he edited. He championed Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises, published by Scribner’s in 1926, despite concerns within the firm about its language and subject matter. The book’s success strengthened Hemingway’s position and Perkins’s editorial judgment.

Perkins did not write Hemingway’s books or impose a recognizable house style on them. His role was closer to that of a demanding adviser: he helped shape manuscripts, encouraged revision, and supported authors through publication. Hemingway’s later novel The Old Man and the Sea was dedicated to Perkins’s memory after Perkins died in 1947.

A common mix-up is F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was also closely associated with Perkins and helped introduce Hemingway to him. Fitzgerald was Perkins’s celebrated client, but Perkins—not Fitzgerald or Charles Scribner—was Hemingway’s editor.