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The Lady With The Borzoi: Blanche Knopf, Literary Tastemaker Extraordinaire

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Left off her company's fifth anniversary tribute but described by Thomas Mann as "the soul of the firm," 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 Albert Camus, Andre 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 firm'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 Blanche's "witty, loyal, and amusing" 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 categorised.

Review

"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 women'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 Claridge'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 Knopf'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 writer'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 Knopf'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 Review

"Claridge has written a deeply researched biography of an important but often unacknowledged publisher." --Editor's Choice, New York Times Book Review

"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 firm'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

"Claridge's biography has a clear, polemical, and sympathetic aim: to recuperate Blanche Knopf's position as a giant in modern publishing, despite the efforts of her husband to obscure and minimize her role. This couldn't be more timely . . . Blanche is now the subject of an admiring, dutiful, full-length biography . . . Blanche's story, told by Claridge, astonishes."--Josh Lambert, Los Angeles Review of Books

About the Author

Laura Claridge's books include Tamara de Lempicka: 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 The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and other publications, she lives in the Hudson Valley.

Review:

4.2 out of 5

84.00% of customers are satisfied

A brilliant read!

M.B. · 23 September 2022

I absolutely loved this book! What an amazing life to lead!

Five Stars

S. · 3 May 2016

An important addition to the developing history of publishing in the USA.

Ultimately dull

M. · 7 November 2022

I persevered for two-thirds of the book and then gave up. There is far, far too much of who was at a party on this exact date at this exact address, who exactly Blanche had dinner with on this night, when she set off for Europe on which ship and when she returned on which ship.I bought this because Blanche played a small but interesting role in "Julia" with Sarah Lancashire. In it we see how she worked as an editor, and we see that she thought cookbooks weren't worth Judith Jones's time. There is none of that in this book -- no sense of how Blanche approached editing her authors (though long lists of the authors she signed and many quotes from reviews of the time, most of long-forgotten authors). If that interests you, great. If Blanche Knopf as a human being interests you, look elsewhere.

One of America's Great Publishers at Work

R.H.C. · 18 May 2016

Blanche 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 Willa Cather 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, Thomas Mann, Kafka, Sartre, Camus and Simone de Beauvoir. 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 Langston Hughes. 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 Dashiell Hammett (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 New York 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.

Blanche Knopf--What an amazing lady!

L.I. · 13 November 2020

Really great and informative book... and thank God for Blanche Knopf. Because of her, we have "by now, twenty-seven Knopf writers [who] had won the Pulitzer Prize, and sixteen the Nobel." A force of nature, come what may, plowing through a complicated life with grace and verve. Well written and researched, I also appreciated the selected bibliography and index. Thank you, Laura Claridge!

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The Lady With The Borzoi: Blanche Knopf, Literary Tastemaker Extraordinaire

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