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#820761 in Books Laura Claridge 2016-04-12 2016-04-12Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 234.95 x 34.92 x 6.31l, 1.00 #File Name: 0374114250416 pagesThe Lady with the Borzoi Blanche Knopf Literary Tastemaker Extraordinaire | File size: 37.Mb

Laura Claridge : The Lady with the Borzoi: Blanche Knopf, Literary Tastemaker Extraordinaire before purchasing it in order to gage whether or not it would be worth my time, and all praised The Lady with the Borzoi: Blanche Knopf, Literary Tastemaker Extraordinaire:

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. One of America's Great Publishers at WorkBy Ronald H. ClarkBlanche Knopf (1894-1966) is the subject of this interesting biography--but it is as much a bio of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., the publisher and the American publishing industry. Co-founder of the house in 1915, it was really Blanche who was the indefatigable spark plug whose ceaseless activity drove Knopf into the first ranks of American publishers. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in the development of American publishing during the first two-thirds of the 20th century. Given the enormous range of important books published by Knopf, the book also provides a very interesting mini-history of much of the important literature during this period and its key writers. For example, BK was a great friend of Henry Mencken as well as publisher of his classic "The American Language;" so the reader learns a good deal about this fascinating character. The same is true of and other authors. One key to Blanche's success was she hunted out potential authors, went out and met them, and continue to serve as their "den mother" during their often challenging lives. I doubt if our huge corporate publishers today (including Knopf absorbed by Random House in 1960) devote such TLC to their authors as she did.Blanche directed Knopf to publish a wide range of foreign authors, including Freud, Gide, , Kafka, Sartre, Camus and . Potential controversy did not scare her off, as witnessed by her publication of "The Second Sex" as well as a host of black writers discovered in her forays into Harlem, including James Baldwin and . But she also had a great eye for fun books like Julia Child's trailblazing work on French cooking. And Knopf published lots of mysteries selected by BK, including books by (who really required a lot of baby sitting), Raymond Chandler and Ross McDonald. She also seems to have known many eminent folks in the smaller and more intimate of her day, including Justice Robert Jackson, Scotty Reston, John Hersey and Tom Dewey. She also managed several important foreign goodwill trips for the government to Latin American and Europe along the way.I have always been a fan of Knopf books because of the outstanding level of craftsmanship and typography they manifest. This too is large ascribable to her impeccable taste. From the outset of the house's founding in 1915, she insisted that Knopf would publish only the highest quality books--a tradition that continues today. Knopf did not fall into the trap of seeking to publish only best sellers; more moderate but perennial solid titles were its goal. l had long been curious about Knopf and I thank the author for informing me of many key details as she examines Blanche's interesting life. The book is supported by solid research reflected in extensive notes and solid bibliography and index. Quite an interesting read about an important cultural figure.13 of 15 people found the following review helpful. Saint BlancheBy CharlusNot every biographer winds up liking their chosen subject. But rarely does biography devolve into hagiography as in this book.Claridge's volume tells half a great story: that of the publishing world in the first half of the Twentieth Century.This aspect of the book, skimming across Knopf's greatest hits and names - Dashiell Hammett, Langston Hughes, Thomas Mann, Freud - is the best reason to pick up this book. Since each chapter is dotted with anecdotes concerning these writers, this is what keeps one turning the page.However, its ostensible subject is far more problematic. Claridge's mission is made clear at the outset, to correct, posthumously, a great injustice, to credit Blanche Knopf, wife of Alfred and co-founder of their publishing company, with her role in its accomplishments. Unfortunately, in trying to correct the balance, she stacks her arguments to the point where a corrective to the corrective is needed.Her thesis is easily summed up. Everything Blanche does is good, everything Alfred does is bad.The accumulation of arguments in this vein becomes increasingly comical as the book progresses, as well as increasingly irritating. Alfred, one is made to understand, is cold, domineering, dogmatic, a poor manager, unloving, etc. Blanche is warm, perceptive, people love her, etc. But reading between the lines, another picture presents itself.Blanche is anorexic (although that label is never used), episodically alcoholic, depressed and periodically suicidal (two attempts are quickly glossed over and Alfred of course is blamed for one of them). Her son loathed her and she was a serial philanderer, with married men, who liked to show off her lovers' gifts to her husband but then couldn't understand why he bore her any resentment. None of this would matter if Claridge didn't repeatedly explain any fault of Blanche's as due to the failings of others. Even the most minor. A mistake in German spelling in a letter she wrote is blamed on her secretary (p.193).Claridge writes "Unlike Alfred, whose writing was too ponderous for readers to finish, Blanche had a clear, direct style"(p.196). Do we get any comparative examples? A quote critical of Blanche (p.236) was apparently from someone who "sounds if she is jealous of Blanche". When she is out to steal an author from another publishing house, "unlike poaching, following up on news of an unhappy author was entirely ethical"(p.265). The distinction is lost on me.Cliches abound. "Her lenses were so thick they looked like the bottom of Coke bottles"(p.259). Blanche "had never been one to dwell in sorrow; she was wont to feel great pain at her losses and then determinedly resume her life"(p.270). "She had wanted to challenge convention, to push the boundaries"(p.282). Plus omniscience is presumed in the author. "Her poor diet had created distinctive claws, surely reminding her and Alfred of the bird girl in Green Mansions"(p.333). Surely? How does she know?When admiration becomes sycophantic, 340 pages of text becomes a slog. It isn't that Blanche Knopf doesn't deserve recognition for her many immense accomplishments. She just deserves a better biography.6 of 7 people found the following review helpful. For every woman who ever suffered at the hands of an egomaniacal husband, and those husbands!By John NeufeldAn invaluable story for everyone interested in books publishing, not to mention character study. Long before Helen Kurt Wolff books emigrated to Harcourt,Brace,there were Blanche and Alfred Knopf, miserable as he was and who made her even more miserable. Youthfully and in love (so we're told), together they promised to start a fine, academic but economically successful trade publishing house as PARTNERS, a promise Alfred never seemed to remember. For 50 plus years he managed to talk about the triumphs of Knopf as though they were all the result of HIS hard-working, diligent scoping,and innate phenomenal taste. Although she made his life miserable for this, Blanche also allowed it. But it was she who loved books and writing and authors, personalities and style and Nobel winners. Blanche became a grand lady of the industry, entertaining often and elegantly In NYC, London, Paris. We're told, and believe, that she and Alfred were basically incompatible sexually, but somehow they managed to produce a son, Alfred A. Knopf,Jr., called "Pat." (Full disclosure: Pat Knopf, as head of Atheneum, years later published one of my novels.) Readers will empathize and sympathize hugely with Blanche as through the years she became ever more stylish and willful, even though she remembered her affection for Alfred from time to time...writing him the occasional reminiscence, apparently hoping to jog his heart if not his memory. Her relationship with her son was poisoned (so we are told) by Pat's discovering his mother embracing a lover. And yet, at her death, as Pat sits by her bedside, he sobs and so do we. The splendor of its settings, the long-forgotten tics of elegance and finery, Blanche's endless hoping for more than she was allowed to receive (either in notoriety or in acknowledgment) help power the reader to an emotional reading of this determined,hugely talented woman.John Neufeld,author ofEDGAR ALLAN and LISA, BRIGHT AND DARK (both Kindled) The untold story of Blanche Knopf, the singular woman who helped define American literatureLeft off her companyrsquo;s fifth anniversary tribute but described by Thomas Mann as ldquo;the soul of the firm,rdquo; Blanche Knopf began her career when she founded Alfred A. Knopf with her husband in 1915. With her finger on the pulse of a rapidly changing culture, Blanche quickly became a driving force behind the firm. A conduit to the literature of Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance, Blanche also legitimized the hard-boiled detective fiction of writers such as Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and Raymond Chandler; signed and nurtured literary authors like Willa Cather, Elizabeth Bowen, and Muriel Spark; acquired momentous works of journalism by John Hersey and William Shirer; and introduced American readers to , Andreacute; Gide, and Simone de Beauvoir, giving these French writers the benefit of her consummate editorial taste. As Knopf celebrates its centennial, Laura Claridge looks back at the firmrsquo;s beginnings and the dynamic woman who helped to define American letters for the twentieth century. Drawing on a vast cache of papers, Claridge also captures Blanchersquo;s ldquo;witty, loyal, and amusingrdquo; personality, and her charged yet oddly loving relationship with her husband. An intimate and often surprising biography, The Lady with the Borzoi is the story of an ambitious, seductive, and impossibly hardworking woman who was determined not to be overlooked or easily categorized.

"Claridge is the first to bring Blanche Wolf Knopf fully out of the shadows in this meticulous, groundbreaking biography . . . Claridge illuminates a radiant facet of American publishing and womenrsquo;s history as she portrays Blanche Knopf in all her brainy and aesthetic glory and elegant fortitude." ?Booklist (starred review)"[Claridge] manages to synthesize an enormous amount of research and biographical information to paint a complete picture of a complex figure. Packed with interesting literary anecdotes, this biography reveals a powerful woman who played an integral role in 20th-century publishing." ?Publishers Weekly"Claridge's lucid and sympathetic portrait of an unconventional and path-breaking woman mired in a marriage that left her emotionally bereft but professionally empowered, will resonate with any reader who, like Blanche Knopf, has ever found salvation in books." ?Emily Bingham, author of Irrepressible"At turns reviled and adored, fragile and invincible, free and shackled, Blanche Knopf was often denied credit for the success of the publishing firm she founded with her husband, and that bears his name alone. Laura Claridgersquo;s biography of a woman and the books she loved shows in particular how much French existentialism and hard-boiled detective fiction owe to Blanche Knopfrsquo;s daring, independent vision. With a winning eye to detail, with empathy and wit, Laura Claridge gives Blanche Knopf her hard-earned seat at the high table of literary modernism." ?Alice Kaplan, author of Dreaming in French"Blanche Knopf emerges as a revelation in this first biography: Elegant, highly strung, unappreciated and lonely in her marriage, she was a brilliant editor, a writerrsquo;s best reader, and essential to the creation of the great house of Knopf. No Blanche, no Knopf." ?Dorothy Gallagher, author of Lillian Hellman: An Imperious Life"A fascinating look at Blanche Knopf . . . Filled with insights into the literary intrigues of the times and Blanche's careful handling and promotion of 'her' writers as well as the house's authors, this biography is highly recommended to readers who are interested in modernist literature, American literature, publishing, and creative writing." --Pam Kingsbury, Library Journal (starred review)"[A] remarkable life story . . . Capacious and engaging . . . In The Lady with the Borzoi, Claridge triumphantly restores Blanche Knopfrsquo;s central place in 20th-century publishing history." --Catherine Hollins, Book Page"If you've ever struggled with the task of composing a guest list for the ultimate fantasy dinner party, Laura Caldridge's biography of Blanche Knopf...will show you whom to put at the head of your table...[A] textured portrait" --Liesl Schillinger, New York Times Book "Claridge has written a deeply researched biography of an important but often unacknowledged publisher." --Editor's Choice, New York Times Book "An intimate, nuanced, and complex portrait of Blanche Knopf . . . [Claridge's research] lends the book both authority and authenticity. The writing style isaccessible, evocative, and frank, and underpinned by significant scholarship." ?Linda F. Burghardt, Jewish Book Council"In her biography, Laura Claridge builds a compelling case that it was Blanche, far more than Alfred, who was responsible for that superiority, who pursued and persuaded writers to sign on?often for low salaries and pitiful advances?for the sake of the firmrsquo;s reputation and for her own devoted personal attention." ?Joanna Scutts, The New Republic"A long- overdue acknowledgment of the pioneering role Blanche [Knopf] played at a time when women were nearly invisible in the business world." --Charles McGrath, The New Yorker"Claridgersquo;s biography has a clear, polemical, and sympathetic aim: to recuperate Blanche Knopfrsquo;s position as a giant in modern publishing, despite the efforts of her husband to obscure and minimize her role. This couldnrsquo;t be more timely . . . Blanche is now the subject of an admiring, dutiful, full-length biography . . . Blanchersquo;s story, told by Claridge, astonishes."--Josh Lambert, Los Angeles of BooksAbout the AuthorLaura Claridgersquo;s books include : A Life of Deco and Decadence; Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of America; and Norman Rockwell: A Life. A frequent contributor to , Vogue, The Boston Globe, the , The Christian Science Monitor, and other publications, she lives in the Hudson Valley.

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