Tales a Table Could Tell
I spotted this article in the New York Times Magazine one Sunday afternoon while relaxing at home. It was long and rambling—about four times the length we gave it. And typically for a news magazine, the piece spilled the beans up front, telling readers how much the Colonial-era card table had brought when auctioned at Sotheby’s. I asked our cutters to recast the piece as a suspenseful chronology spanning the table’s 200-year history and climaxing with the gavel price. I also reminded them to alter as few words as possible, invoking old-time Digest editor Ken Payne’s famous dictum: “If it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change.” Here is the wonderful result.
Reader’s Digest, April 1994, pp. 72–77. Reprinted with permission.