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Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Being contrary by nature, your post reminded me of a counter-example, summarized in the second half of this book review:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/bo...pagewanted=all

By the way, the reason I know about this review is that Sam Tanenhaus listed it among his favorites.

I suspect that most outstanding writers need an excellent editor -- and that it has never been easy to find one.

This thread has been very interesting. In addition to the comments here I followed your link to the Stephen King review. What King has to say about the way Raymond Carver's work was edited goes to the heart of this discussion. In King's view Carver's editor rewrote his work rather than editing it.

There is a link in the Times piece to a second, brief article by the Times editors in which they quote what King thinks an editor should do. I don't know how much of a copyrighted article can be quoted in a forum post so I'll just give the link to that second Times piece.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/bo...tml?ref=review