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Alfred A. Knopf, Sr.

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Publisher

The Resume

    (September 12, 1892-August 11, 1984)
    Born in New York City, New York
    With his wife Blanche founded the publishing firm Alfred A. Knopf (1915)
    Published James Baldwin, James M. Cain, Albert Camus, Willa Cather, Joseph Conrad, Theodore Dreiser, E.M. Forster, Andre Gide, Dashiell Hammett, Langston Hughes, Franz Kafka, D.H. Lawrence, Thomas Mann, H.L. Mencken, Jean-Paul Sartre, and John Updike
    Firm merged with Random House (1960)
    Also published the magazine 'The American Mercury' (1924-34)

Why he might be annoying:

    He flunked economics at Columbia University.
    He was fired as an editorial assistant with British publisher Mitchell Kennerley after he was caught trying to poach some of the firm's more popular authors for the company he was planning.
    He kept up six years of correspondence with Eastman Kodak complaining about a lost roll of film.
    He complained, 'Too many books are published and they are overpriced.'
    Authors he turned down include Jack Kerouac, Sylvia Plath, George Orwell, Vladimir Nabokov, Jorge Luis Borges, and Isaac Bashevis Singer.
    He was embarrassed that his company's best seller was Kahlil Gibran's 'The Prophet.'

Why he might not be annoying:

    He paid William Henry Hudson royalties for the firm's first best-seller, 'Green Mansions,' even though he was not legally obligated to, as the novel had been ruled to be in the public domain in the US.
    He said his favorite author to publish was Willa Cather.
    He said about his company's high production standards, 'I love books physically, and I want to make them beautifully.'
    He and Blanche were married for 50 years.
    At the time of his death, Knopf had represented more Nobel Prize-winning authors than any other American publishing firm.

Credit: C. Fishel


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Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 5 Votes: 0% Annoying