Alfred A. Knopf Jr. | Publisher, 90
Alfred A. Knopf Jr., 90, son of publishing legends and an influential publisher in his own right, died Saturday in New York of complications from a fall in mid-January, his wife, Alice, said.
Alfred A. Knopf Jr., 90, son of publishing legends and an influential publisher in his own right, died Saturday in New York of complications from a fall in mid-January, his wife, Alice, said.
Mr. Knopf was the only child of Alfred Knopf and Blanche Wolf Knopf. He left his parents' company, Alfred A. Knopf Inc., in 1959 to cofound Atheneum Publishers with Simon Michael Bessie and Hiram Haydn.
Among Atheneum's releases were Theodore White's The Making of the President, 1960, Frederic Morton's The Rothschilds: A Family Portrait, and Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The company published one of Mario Puzo's books but declined to publish The Godfather.
In later years, the company merged with Charles Scribner's Sons to form Scribner Book Cos. That company was acquired by Macmillan Inc., and Mr. Knopf became a senior vice president. He retired from publishing in 1988.
- AP