The phone is ringing on Friday evening at 6. Herald author F. B. is on the line: "I've written an article and can't find a proper ending. Can you help me?" My answer: "Why don't you read your manuscript to me?" And while he's still reading, the solution to his problem is becoming clear to me, as Managing Editor of Der Christian Science Herold. We talk for a few minutes and exchange ideas. And suddenly F. B. calls out: "I've got it. I've got the solution! Thank you!"
Why is this brief conversation between an author and editor relevant enough to be told here? To fully understand why, one must know what the editing procedure was like before it was possible to have in-country Herald editors who could work with authors in their own languages.
Back then, the editors of the Herald were happy to have articles by authors who didn't write English, but the editorial staff in Boston was composed of English-speaking people. So the process that evolved was this: an article had to be translated into English, then edited in English, then translated back into its native language. Then—since PCs were still in the future and e-mail did not exist—the edited article and perhaps an explanatory letter would be sent off to the author. This whole process took months, sometimes as much as a year.
