The Lady with the Borzoi

by Laura Claridge

  31.  Howard Kaminsky, interviewed by the author, May 5, 2014; and Daniel Okrent, e-mail to the author, May 18, 2014.

  32.  Harding Lemay, interviewed by the author, August 28, 2012.

  33.  BWK, letter to Jenny Bradley, September 14, 1959, AP.

  34.  Scotty Bowers, Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars (New York: Grove Press, 2012).

  35.  Scotty Bowers, interviewed by the author (telephone), May 5, 2012.

  36.  Scotty Bowers, interviewed by the author (telephone), May 6, 2012.

  37.  Scotty Bowers, interviewed by the author (telephone), January 31, 2013.

  23. A SON’S DEFECTION

    1.  Harding Lemay, interviewed by the author, New York, August 28, 2012.

    2.  Harding Lemay, Inside, Looking Out: A Personal Memoir by Harding Lemay (New York: Harper’s Magazine Press, 1971), 237.

    3.  Al Silverman, The Time of Their Lives: The Golden Age of Great American Publishers, Their Editors and Authors (New York: Truman Talley Books, 2008), 94.

    4.  Hiram Haydn, Words & Faces: An Intimate Chronicle of Book and Magazine Publishing (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974), 110–11.

    5.  Frances Lindley, interviewed by Susan Sheehan, February 18, 1975, AP.

    6.  Pat & Atheneum—2, 57, AP.

    7.  Ibid.

    8.  Robert Nathan, 3, AP.

    9.  Pat Knopf, interviewed by Peter Prescott, September 25, 1992, AP.

  10.  As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto: Food, Friendship and the Making of a Masterpiece, ed. Joan Reardon (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2010), 325.

  11.  Frances Lindley, interviewed by Susan Sheehan, February 18, 1975, AP.

  12.  53, AP.

  13.  Arnold Rampersad, The Life of Langston Hughes, vol. 2, 1941–1967: I Dream a World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 295.

  14.  Ibid.

  15.  Ibid., 296, 299.

  16.  BWK, letter to Jenny Bradley, July 17, 1959, National Parks—2, AP.

  17.  Wayne S. Kerwood, interviewed by Peter Prescott, n.d., AP.

  18.  Blanche-22, Peter Prescott collection, AP.

  19.  Alice Y. Kaplan, Dreaming in French: The Paris Years of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 133–34.

  20.  Ibid., 178–79.

  21.  The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale can find no record of Alfred’s offer.

  22.  Michael Winship, graduate students’ publications, 27, HRC.

  23.  Stephen Bayley, unpublished essay, June 2011, courtesy of the author.

  24.  Harding Lemay, interviewed by Susan Sheehan, February 1, 1975, AP.

  25.  Elizabeth Bowen, draft in Bowen file, BWK, HRC.

  26.  Bennett Cerf/Klopfer, AP.

  27.  Publishers Weekly, 1966, AP.

  28.  Witter Bynner 6, 1981.

  29.  Donald Klopfer, interviewed by Susan Sheehan, February 3, 1975, AP. The following three paragraphs also rely on this source.

  30.  Robert Lusty, Bound to Be Read (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976), 137.

  31.  AAK notes, March 25, 1963, AP.

  32.  Thanks to Professor Bruce Fleming of the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, for confirming these details.

  33.  Blanche-5, AP.

  34.  Blanche-10, AP.

  35.  Allen Dulles, letter to BWK, spring 1961, Princeton University education archives.

  36.  James Kelly, “You Say Prescriptive, I Say Proper,” The Wall Street Journal, October 5, 2012.

  37.  Alice Payne Hackett, 70 Years of Best Sellers, 1895–1965 (New York: R. R. Bowker, 1967), 21.

  38.  Desmond Flower, Fellows in Foolscap: Memoirs of a Publisher (London: Robert Hale, 1991), 360.

  39.  William Koshland, interviewed by Susan Sheehan, February 2, 1975, AP.

  40.  Harding Lemay, interviewed by Susan Sheehan, February 1, 1975, AP.

  41.  Harriet de Onís, letter to BWK, November 4, 1961, AP.

  42.  BWK, letter to AAK, February 8, 1962, AP.

  43.  Ibid.

  44.  Ibid.

  45.  Blanche—physical, AP.

  46.  John Hersey, interviewed by Susan Sheehan, n.d., AP.

  47.  BWK, letter to AAK, September 21, 1962, AP.

  24. NO MORE DEALS

    1.  Arnold Rampersad, The Life of Langston Hughes, vol. 2, 1941–1967: I Dream a World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 356.

    2.  BWK, letter to AAK, February 8, 1962, AP.

    3.  BWK, letter to Scotty Reston, December 20, 1962, AP; and Scotty Reston letter to BWK, n.d., AP.

    4.  Lyonel Nelson, letter to the author, December 5, 2013, AP.

    5.  Muriel Spark, letter to BWK, May 2, 1963, AP.

    6.  Pat Knopf, interviewed by Susan Sheehan, February 21, 1975, AP.

    7.  Stanley Kauffmann, “Publishing: Album of the Knopfs,” The American Scholar 56, no. 3 (Summer 1987): 371–81.

    8.  Ibid.

    9.  Harding Lemay, Inside, Looking Out: A Personal Memoir by Harding Lemay (New York: Harper’s Magazine Press, 1971), 243–44.

  10.  Ibid.

  11.  Ibid., 245.

  12.  Ibid., 247.

  13.  BWK, letter to Muriel Spark, March 1963, AP.

  14.  BWK, letter to Muriel Spark, March 17, 1963, AP.

  15.  BWK, letter to Muriel Spark, May 1963, AP.

  16.  AAK, letter to Edwin Knopf, September 20, 1963, AP.

  17.  Harding Lemay, interviewed by the author, New York, n.d., discussing Virgilia Peterson.

  18.  Virgilia Peterson, “Few Were More Delightful, Lovely or Savage: The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark,” The New York Times, September 15, 1963.

  19.  AAK, interviewed by Susan Sheehan, 1975, AP.

  20.  Joseph Lesser, interviewed by Peter Prescott, n.d., AP.

  21.  BWK, telegram to Muriel Spark, March 27, 1964, AP.

  22.  BWK, letter to Scotty Reston, September 2, 1964, AP.

  23.  Orville Prescott, “Return of the Hawkes Family,” The New York Times, November 11, 1964.

  24.  Dogs—Jon Godden, May 19, 1961, AP; and Blanche larger file, AP.

  25.  Joseph Lesser, interviewed by Susan Sheehan, March 22–25, 1976, AP; quoted Grace Dadd, Eleanor French, and AAK.

  26.  Rampersad, The Life of Langston Hughes, vol. 2, 382.

  27.  BWK, letter to Muriel Spark, December 31, 1964, AP.

  28.  Publishers Weekly, February 1, 1965.

  29.  BWK, letter to Muriel Spark, March 30, 1965, AP.

  30.  Ibid.

  31.  Doris Grumbach, “The Mandelbaum Gate,” America 113, no. 17 (October 23, 1965): 474.

  32.  Newsweek, May 17, 1965.

  33.  David R. Johnson, Conrad Richter: A Writer’s Life (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), 346.

  34.  “Some Reminiscences About Their Illustrious Roster of Authors,” Life, July 23, 1965.

  35.  BWK, letter to Jascha Heifetz, August 2, 1965, AP.

  36.  Blanche—physical, AP.

  37.  Ibid.

  38.  Ibid.

  39.  A & B menage—4, AP.

  40.  Coronary 1965 Ref 74T8:8, AP.

  41.  Blanche—physical, AP.

  42.  Pat Knopf, interviewed by Susan Sheehan, February 21, 1975, AP.

  43.  AAK notes, HRC.

  44.  Harding Lemay, e-mail to the author, June 4, 2014.

  45.  Knopf press release, January 11, 1966. Currently Random House is the corporate umbrella for more than one hundred
publishing imprints. After RCA sold it to the Newhouse group in 1980, it was traded to the German media company Bertelsmann for $1.4 billion in 1998. Most recently, in 2013, the conglomerate Penguin Random House became a reality.

  46.  AAK notes, AP.

  47.  Lyonel Nelson, e-mail correspondence with the author, July 27, 2013.

  48.  Lyonel Nelson, From Farm to Fifth Avenue: How I Became a Stylist to the Rich and Famous at the World’s Most Exclusive Salon (CreateSpace, 2014).

  49.  Ibid.

  50.  Lyonel Nelson, e-mail to the author, August 25, 2013.

  51.  William Koshland, interviewed by Peter Prescott, n.d., AP.

  52.  Stanley Kauffman, “Publishing: Album of the Knopfs,” The American Scholar, vol. 56, no. 3 (Summer 1987): 371–81.

  53.  Angeles “Toni” Pasquale, interviewed by Peter Prescott, n.d., AP.

  54.  Harding Lemay, interviewed by Susan Sheehan, February 1, 1975, AP; and e-mail to the author, August 28, 2012.

  55.  BWK, letter to Mainbocher, April 29, 1966, AP.

  56.  Harding Lemay, interviewed by Susan Sheehan, February 1, 1975, AP; and file “A & B,” 6, AP.

  57.  Joseph Lesser, interviewed by Susan Sheehan, March 22–25, 1976, AP.

  58.  Muriel Spark, interviewed by Susan Sheehan, November 23, 1974, AP.

  59.  Joseph Lesser, interviewed by Susan Sheehan, March 22–25, 1976, AP.

  60.  Muriel Spark, interviewed by Susan Sheehan, November 23, 1974, AP, copied here from Martin Stannard, Muriel Spark: The Biography (New York: W. W. Norton, 2010), 281–82.

  61.  Harding Lemay, e-mail to the author, August 26, 2012.

  62.  BWK’s will, 10, AP.

  63.  Joseph Epstein, e-mail to the author, July 15, 2014.

  64.  Pat Knopf, interviewed by Peter Prescott, July 18, 1988, AP.

  65.  Harding Lemay, interviewed by the author, April 5, 2012.

  66.  Pat Knopf, interviewed by Peter Prescott, September 19, 1989, AP.

  67.  “Anniversary,” AP.

  68.  The Borzoi Quarterly 15, no. 3 (1966).

  69.  Ibid.

  EPILOGUE

    1.  Helen Knopf—2, AP.

    2.  W. H. Ferry, interviewed by Susan Sheehan, February 21, 1975, AP.

  SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

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  Ballou, Ellen B. The Building of the House: Houghton Mifflin’s Formative Years. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970.

  Barnet, Andrea. All-Night Party: The Women of Bohemian Greenwich Village and Harlem, 1913–1930. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 2004.

  Beauvoir, Simone de. The Blood of Others. Translated by Roger Senhouse and Yvonne Moyse. New York: Pantheon Books, 1983.

  ______. The Second Sex. Translated and edited by H. M. Parshley. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.

  Bell, Millicent. Marquand: An American Life. Boston: Little, Brown, 1979.

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  Birkett, Jennifer. Margaret Storm Jameson: A Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

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  Bruccoli, Matthew J. The Fortunes of Mitchell Kennerley, Bookman. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986.

  ______, ed. A Life in Letters: F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.

  Bruccoli, Matthew J., and Richard Layman. Hardboiled Mystery Writers: Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ross Macdonald; A Literary Reference. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2002.

  Butcher, Fanny. Many Lives—One Love. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.

  Cain, James M. The Butterfly. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1947.

  ______. The Embezzler. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1943.

  ______. Galatea. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953.

  ______. Love’s Lovely Counterfeit. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942.

  ______. Mildred Pierce. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1941.

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  ______. Our Government. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930.

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  ______. The Postman Always Rings Twice. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1934.

  ______. Three of a Kind. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1943.

  Camus, Albert. Translated by Stuart Gilbert. Caligula & Three Other Plays. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1958.

  ______. Exile and the Kingdom. Translated by Justin O’Brien. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1958.

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  ______. Notebooks. Translated by Philip M. W. Thody and Justin O’Brien. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963.

  ______. The Plague. Translated by Stuart Gilbert. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948.

  ______. The Possessed: A Play in Three Parts. Translated by Justin O’Brien. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960.

  ______. The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt. Translated by Anthony Bower. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956.

  ______. Resistance, Rebellion, and Death. Translated by Justin O’Brien. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961.

  ______. The Stranger. Translated by Justin O’Brien. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946.

  ______. Youthful Writings. Translated by Ellen Conroy Kennedy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976.

  Caro, Robert A. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974.

  Cather, Willa. April Twilights, and Other Poems. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923.

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  ______. A Lost Lady. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973.

  ______. Lucy Gayheart. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1935.

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  ______. My Mortal Enemy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926.

  ______. Not Under Forty. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1936.

  ______. “The Novel Démeublé.” The New Republic, April 1922, suppl.: 5–6. Reprinted in Not Under Forty. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1936.

  ______. Obscure Destinies. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1932.

  ______. The Old Beauty, and Others. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948.

  ______. One of Ours. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1922.

  ______. “On the Art of Fiction.” In Knopf, The Borzoi 1920. Reprinted in Willa Cather, On Writing. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949.

  ______. On Writing: Critical Studies on Writing as an Art. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949.

  ______. O Pioneers! New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1913.

  ______. “Portrait of the Publisher as a Young Man.” In Rogers. Alfred A. Knopf.

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  ______. Shadows on the Rock. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1931.

  ______. Youth and the Bright Medusa. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1920.


  Cather, Willa, Andrew Jewell, and Janis P. Stout. The Selected Letters of Willa Cather. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013.

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  Chandler, Raymond. The Big Sleep. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966.

  ______. Collected Stories. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.

  ______. Farewell, My Lovely. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945.

  ______. The High Window. New York: Vintage Books, 1976.

  ______. The Lady in the Lake. New York: Garland, 1976.

  ______. Trouble Is My Business. New York: Vintage, 1988.

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  ______. Janet March. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923.

  ______. King Arthur’s Socks and Other Village Plays. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1922.

  ______. Looking at Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1924.

  ______. Moon-Calf. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1920.

  ______. Runaway. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1925.

  ______. This Mad Ideal. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1925.

  ______. Were You Ever a Child. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1919.

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