Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s popular and widely respected publisher of adult trade books, Becky Saletan, has abruptly quit the company. According to an Associated Press wire story by Hillel Italie, a spokesman for the company has confirmed Saletan’s resignation but “declined further comment,” while Saletan herself has issued no comment and has not responded to reporters’ messages. The surprise development comes in the wake of last week’s story that HMH had frozen new acquisitions (see the previous MobyLives report), which in turn came hard on the heels of a huge, mid-town party celebrating the merger of Houghton Mifflin with Harcourt. Prior to that, Saletan had been publisher of adult trade books at Harcourt, and was then promoted to head the combined adult trade division, winning that position over Houghton publisher (and Philip Roth editor) Janet Silver. The ironies continue: Silver, along with Saletan’s former star editor Tina Pohlman, subsequently both left the company to join Random House Inc.’s Doubleday imprint … which laid off both of them in cutbacks last month. Was Saletan reacting to the acquisitions freeze, and/or did she see the larger writing on the wall? As Italie notes, “Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has reportedly been hit hard by the tight credit market and any halt on acquisitions is widely believed to be in anticipation of a possible sale. Their owner, the private-equity concern Education Media and Publishing Group, has acknowledged that rival publishers have expressed interest in buying HMH.”