Alfred Knopf Sr.: In Pursuit of a Dream

Alfred Knopf Sr. was a 20th century publisher who founded his own publishing house named Alfred A. Knopf Inc. Knopf’s publishing house has earned the reputation of producing books with high quality of design, printing and binding 204,325 his clients cited him as a purist in presentation and content.

Knopf was born on September 12, 1892 in New York City. His family was of Jewish descent. His father, Edwin, had a short stint working in his company as film producer and director. Knopf attended the law school of Columbia University where he was honed as a debater and literary writer. In his senior year at Columbia, Knopf became very interested in publishing, a passion he attributed to the engaging correspondence of the British writer John Galsworthy. After his visit to Galsworthy in England, Knopf returned to New York, gave up his plans to pursue his career in law and went to publishing.

In 1912, Knopf worked at Doubleday as a clerk after he received his Bachelor of Arts degree. He also worked for Michael Kennerly as editorial assistant in 1914. In 1915, Knopf left Kennerly and established his own publishing house. Knopf focused on European, especially Russian literature at a time when European literature was neglected to a large extent by most American publishers. Knopf published the works of the likes of Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Joseph Conrad, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Mann, and D.H. Lawrence. He also published American authors like James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Theodore Dreiser, and his personal favorite Willa Cather.

Between 1924 and 1934, Knopf published The American Mercury, a literary magazine established by Mencken and Nathan. Knopf was very personable as he has developed and maintained personal friendships with various authors in the fields of science, sociology and history. Some of the historians with whom Knopf has developed close friendships were Samuel Eliot Morison, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Richard Hofstadter.

Knopf was also an accomplished writer. His writings included Publishing Then and Now, Random Recollections, Sixty Photographs, and Portrait of a Publisher.

In 1959, Knopf’s son Alfred Jr. left the company to establish his own company Atheneum Publishers. In order to survive, Knopf merged his company with the publishing house of his friend Bennett Cerf, the Random House in 1960. He remained the editor for the next five years. Knopf calls the merger “a perfect marriage.”