The Press: Canceled Seal

Herbert Raymond Mayes was a Hearst editor in the old tradition—bellowing, belligerent, brilliant. He joined the empire in 1927, became editor of the money-making monthly Good Housekeeping in 1938. Says a freelancer who has felt his whip: "Mayes ran that magazine like the overseer of a chain gang." He did everything from assigning articles to writing heads, often refashioned passages of fiction without bothering to tell the author. His editorial recipe served the housewife a hasty pudding of bland fiction, beauty tips, and advice ranging from babies to plumbing. This year Good Housekeeping has a circulation of 4,233,252, tops in its...

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