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Happy Birthday, Alfred A. Knopf!
September 12, 2007

That's happy birthday to the man himself, and not his company. Alfred A. Knopf was born on in New York City on September 12, 1892, and as The Writer's Almanac notes today, "He thought more people would read good books if books were more beautiful to look at. So he used beautiful, easy-to-read type and high-quality paper, and he was the first publisher to cover his books with brightly colored jackets."

Knopf's eponymous publishing house, which he founded in 1915, gave everyone more beautiful books to look at through its devotion to design and typography. If these elements had been enhanced on their own they would have been a big change -- but Knopf and his crew went further, paying attention to how a book's design could reflects its content (andhis wife Blanche A. Knopf was a very important part of the company and that crew).

                                                              
                                                            Credit: Carl van Vechten

Just to set the record straight, Answers.com provides the man's own answer to how to properly pronounce "Knopf." I encourage you to read the Answers.com bio, since it shows that Knopf had some of the same concerns about the state of publishing in the early 1960s when he published his memoirs as many in the industry still do today: too many books, too little quality control... 

My personal favorite Knopf author of today is Richard Russo. No, wait, maybe it's Haruki Marukami. Or Kazuo Ishiguro...  of yesteryear, it would have to be Thomas Mann. Wait, what about Julia Child? And E.M. Forster? (Knopf's personal favorite was Willa Cather.) Impossible to choose, but fun to mull over the choices. 

Who is yours? 

Posted by Bethanne Patrick on September 12, 2007 | Comments (0)