New Directions Publishing, the distinguished literary house founded by the late James Laughlin, has finalized a new agreement with the Tennessee Williams estate that will allow the house to continue publishing works by the celebrated playwright for the life of the copyrights.
Peggy Fox, v-p and managing director of New Directions, told PW that a new agreement with the University of the South, Sewanee, Tenn., which controls the Williams estate, was negotiated over an 18-month period. The deal was brokered by agent Georges Borchardt, and Fox said that New Directions will make two "lump sum payments" to the university for the rights.
New Directions has published Williams since 1944 and keeps all of his works in print. Fox told PW that a provision in the copyright law required New Directions to renegotiate its longtime publishing agreements with the literary trust that was set up to control Williams's works after his death. The trust was originally set up to provide financial support for Williams's sister, Rose, who had been the model for the character of Laura in The Glass Menagerie. After Rose's death in 1996, control of the Williams trust reverted to the university.
Tennessee Williams was first published by New Directions in 1944—before he became a famous American playwright—in an anthology of young American poets. Laughlin and Williams became close friends, and New Directions has been the publisher of all of Williams's works since. Fox, who was Williams's last editor, said Williams told Laughlin in numerous letters that he wanted the considerable income from his works to subsidize the publishing of young writers by New Directions.
New Directions, which is directed by a trust set up by Laughlin, has published many of the most distinguished authors of the 20th century. "We're not a nonprofit," said Fox, "but all profits go back into the corporation." She did note to PW that the payments to the Williams trust "stretched our resources." But she also emphasized Williams's continuing popularity. ND's edition of The Glass Menagerie, first published in 1946, continues to sell between 65,000 and 70,000 copies every year.
ND has about 30 titles by Williams in print—plays, poetry, short stories and correspondence—and plans to issue a variety of new editions and previously unpublished works in the coming years. Next year the house will publish the previously unpublished 1937 play Candles in the Sun and the second volume of The Selected Letters in the fall. The house also licenses the publication of about 10 of Williams's plays to Penguin/NAL.
"At New Directions we have an obligation to James Laughlin, a love of literature and a commitment to the legacy of Tennessee Williams," said Fox.
