Biographer T.J. Stiles

On April 20, Vintage released the paperback edition of The First Tycoon, as shown in the sidebar column of this webpage. That begs the question: What's different about the paperback, compared to the hardcover? Almost as significant: What's the same?

First, what's the same, starting with design and reproduction. When I was preparing The First Tycoon for publication, I selected an unusually large number of illustrations—a total of seventy-nine. Rather than distribute these around the book, I asked that they be reproduced in special inserts. Often an illustrated book offers eight pages of illustrations, in just one insert section. In The First Tycoon, there are two eight-page inserts and one sixteen-page insert.

Why special insert sections? They make the illustrations easier to find, of course, but most important is the reproduction quality they offer. They are on heavier stock, which allows for sharper images and prevents bleed-through, where you can see the photo on the reverse page.

Normally Vintage reproduces these inserts in paperbacks on standard-stock paper. Don't get me wrong: Vintage does a very good job of it. But the publisher agreed, on my request, to print them on the heavier stock for the paperback of The First Tycoon, to provide higher quality reproduction, just as in the hardcover. And, of course, the paperback features the same maps and outstanding interior design as the hardcover. The front cover is slightly different, but the beautiful spine from the hardcover appears on the paperback as well.

That's what's the same. What's different? Even though I'm proud of the first edition of my book, as a particularly clean product, there were still a few minor errors here and there. These were cleaned up even before the paperback, in subsequent printings of the hardcover. But there is one case where I made a change for the paperback that may be worth further discussion.

If you compare pages 458 and 459 of the hardcover and paperback editions, you will note that two paragraphs have been switched. This is in a description of the height of the stockmarket battle known as the Erie War, when Vanderbilt was struggling in 1868 to corner the market in Erie Railway stock. His enemies (Daniel Drew, Jay Gould, and Jim Fisk, among others) created new stock that was frankly unlawful, and dumped it on the market to defeat the corner, which Vanderbilt would have successfully carried through otherwise.

I was discussing this episode with another historian, who pointed out that March 10 was the critical day, in which it became clear that there was new stock being manufactured, and on which the Erie people (Drew, etc.) carried out a "lock-up," withdrawing a massive amount of money from bank accounts in order to cause a freeze-up of credit on Wall Street. These two things effectively stopped the trading in Erie on the stock exchange.

In the hardcover, I mention March 10, and then go on to describe Vanderbilt as continuing to buy the stock. Why? Because I didn't want to get too far down into the weeds of this affair. Other historians, notably Maury Klein and John Steele Gordon, have described the day-by-day details very well, and I saw no need to describe every single maneuver in extreme close-up. After my conversation with the other historian, though, I decided my general description was just a bit too general in this case, since I specifically mentioned that date of March 10.

By switching the paragraph that starts "But Vanderbilt continued to buy" so it appears before my mention of the crisis of March 10, it's clearer that that date marked a turning point, in which the battle on Wall Street screeched to a halt, and the conflict shifted almost entirely to the courts and legislature.

Reading the accounts through, it's clear in both cases that I am offering a general description of the events of those days, rather than a day-by-day, hour-by-hour narrative. Because of that, the original version is not exactly wrong. However, that small change made it more precise for the paperback. And precision matters a great deal to me.