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A 25,000-copy shipment of the US Army War College Foundation Press's reprint of "Once an Eagle" has landed at Stackpole Books to meet backorder demand. Harper Collins is contemplating bringing other Anton Myrer books back into print.
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A bestseller in 1968, Myrer's Army saga soars as military press reprint, snags new HarperCollins deal
HREE DECADES AFTER the novel was first published, a 25,000copy shipment of the U.S. Army War College Foundation Press's paperback reprint of Anton Myrer's Once an Eagle has landed at distributor Stackpole Books to meet backorder demand. And in a rumored six-figure deal, HarperCollins has just acquired world rights to the book and is planning a new hardcover edition for Father's Day. HC is also contemplating bringing other Myrer books back into print, among them his classic The Last Convertible.
All this activity is thanks to an Aug. 16 article in the New York Times that described the military's enduring love for the 800-page novel-which follows two very different Army officers, honorable role model Sam Damon vs. selfserving Courtney Massengale, from World War I up through the early stages of the Vietnam War. The article quoted General Henry H. Shelton, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as saying it is the only book he ever read twice. For HarperPerennial v-p Susan Weinberg, that "handselling," along with the current reader interest in WWII, amounted to attractive inducements to pursue the book. "I think this is an important book that can reach a whole new generation of readers," she said. "We're planning a very ambitious relaunch of the book."
The Times story immediately catapulted the book onto Amazon.com's bestseller list, at one point sending it as high as #3. The Carlisle, Pa.-based Army War College Foundation Press soon found it was out of stock on the 15,000copy shipment that it had bought when it acquired the reprint rights in 1997; new shipment was ordered.
The Press came by the book when Patricia Myrer, around the time of her husband's death in 1996, approached the organization with the offer of giving rights to the book, but only on the condition that it would never go out of print. The book previously had been published in hardcover by Holt, then in paperback by Dell. A subsequent Putnam Berkley paperback was published in 1976, to tie into the book's TV miniseries adaptation, but it had gone out of print, despite being required reading on many military school curriculums.
The Press agreed to the deal, and its current trade paperback edition has a new introduction by Gen. John W. Vessey Jr., a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who writes that the novel ranks with The Red Badge of Courage and All Quiet on the Western Front as great war novels.
In the new deal, Stackpole will be allowed to get the advantage of the boom in Eagle interest and fulfill all orders until the end of the month. And if HarperCollins, which plans a hardcover, then mass market then trade paperback program, ever lets the book go out of print, the Press will pick fulfill its promise to keep the book in print. "It wouldn't be very gentlemanly to go back on our agreements," says Zane Finkelstein, the Foundation lawyer who's been handling all the negotiations surrounding the book."It's not something Sam Damon would do."
Copyright Cahners Magazine Division of Reed Publishing USA Sep 27, 1999