Guide to the Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. Records

The New York Public Library Manuscripts and Archives Division

Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. Records

1899-2003 MssCol 979

John Bolender, Liavon Iurevich, Susan Malsbury, Matthew Snyder 1997-2010

This version produced November 2010

Farrar. Straus & Giroux, Inc. Records

Table of Contents

Summary ..................................................................................................................................................... iv

Historical note ............................................................................................................................................. v

Scope and content note ............................................................................................................................ ix

Arrangement note ...................................................................................................................................... ix

Series descriptions and container list ...................................................................................................... 1

SERIES I. AUTHOR FILES, 1899-1998 .............................................................................................................................................. 1 I. A. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1940-1998 ................................................................................................................................. 2 I. A. 1. Published authors, 1940-1998 ................................................................................................................................. 2 I. A. 1. a. 1940-1982 (1992 accession) ........................................................................................................................... 2 I. A. 1. b. 1954-1997 (1992 accession) ....................................................................................................................... 139 I. A. 1. c. 1948-1998 (2007 accession) ....................................................................................................................... 160 I. A. 2. Rejected authors, 1981-1984 ............................................................................................................................... 182 I. A. 3. Subject files, 1946-1979....................................................................................................................................... 183 I. B. Hill & Wang, 1950-1990................................................................................................................................................ 185 I. B. 1. Published authors, 1950-1990 ............................................................................................................................. 185 I. B. 1. a. 1950-1986 (1992 accession) ....................................................................................................................... 185 I. B. 1. b. 1978-1990 (2007 accession) ....................................................................................................................... 200 I. B. 2. Rejected authors, 1972-1973, 1984-1987............................................................................................................ 202 I. B. 3. Subject files, 1955-1976....................................................................................................................................... 202 I. C. L. C. Page, 1899-1986 ................................................................................................................................................. 203 I. C. 1. Published authors, 1899-1986 ............................................................................................................................. 203 I. C. 2. Subject files, 1903-1971....................................................................................................................................... 206

SERIES II. GENERAL EDITORIAL FILES, 1973-1987 ............................................................................................................. 208 II. A. Farrar, Straus & Giroux correspondence, 1981-1984.................................................................................................. 208 II. A. 1. General, 1981-1984 ............................................................................................................................................ 208 II. A. 2. Colleges and universities, 1982-1984 ................................................................................................................. 214 II. B. Hill & Wang correspondence, 1973-1978, 1981-1987................................................................................................. 215 II. C. Meeting minutes, 1967-1987....................................................................................................................................... 218

SERIES III. EDITOR FILES ............................................................................................................................................................ 219 III. A. Roger W. Straus, Jr. correspondence, 1947-2004 ..................................................................................................... 219 III. B. Robert Giroux, 1950-1992 .......................................................................................................................................... 225 III. B. 1. Chronological correspondence, 1955-1991, n.d. ............................................................................................... 225 III. B. 2. Subject correspondence, 1960-1989, n.d. ......................................................................................................... 226 III. B. 3. Tracers, 1985-1992 ............................................................................................................................................ 228 III. C. Arthur Wang, 1957-1987 ............................................................................................................................................ 229 III. C. 1. Correspondence, 1957-1987 ............................................................................................................................. 229 III. C. 2. Science books, 1985-1987................................................................................................................................. 229 III. D. Pat Strachan, 1973-1988............................................................................................................................................ 230 III. E. Roger W. Straus, III. correspondence, 1986-1993 ..................................................................................................... 231 III. F. Linda Healey, 1988-1992............................................................................................................................................ 231

SERIES IV. CHILDREN'S DIVISION, 1966-2000.............................................................................................................................. 232

SERIES V. SUBSIDIARY RIGHTS, 1980-2003 ................................................................................................................................ 237

SERIES VI. BOOK MANUSCRIPTS (MICROFILM) ............................................................................................................................. 240

SERIES VII. PHOTOGRAPHS......................................................................................................................................................... 250

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Farrar. Straus & Giroux, Inc. Records

SERIES VIII. AUDIO TAPES........................................................................................................................................................... 254 SERIES IX. CATALOGS AND BOUND VOLUMES .............................................................................................................................. 255

IX. A. Bound volumes removed from Series I. Author files .................................................................................................. 255 IX. B. Catalogs ..................................................................................................................................................................... 255

Farrar, Straus................................................................................................................................................................... 255 Hill & Wang ...................................................................................................................................................................... 256 L. C. Page........................................................................................................................................................................ 256 Other Firms...................................................................................................................................................................... 256

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Summary

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Farrar. Straus & Giroux, Inc. Records

Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc.

Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. records, 1899-2003 (bulk 1945-1998)

377 linear feet (893 boxes, 182 microfilm reels)

Purchased from Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc., 1992

The publishing company Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. was founded in 1945 as Farrar, Straus & Company by John Farrar and Roger W. Straus, Jr. After numerous changes in management and corresponding changes in name, the company became known as Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. (FSG) in 1964 when Robert Giroux became editor-in-chief. The company firmly established itself as a quality publisher in the 1960s and 1970s. FSG remained staunchly independent of conglomerate publishing for many years. Even after selling controlling interest to the German publisher Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck in 1994, FSG maintained much of the freedom of an independent publishing house.

Advance notice required. Apply at .

Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc.records , Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library.

Manuscripts for publication, Microfilm, Photographs, Sound recordings

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Farrar. Straus & Giroux, Inc. Records Biographical / Historical note

Historical note

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

John Farrar and Roger W. Straus, Jr. founded Farrar, Straus & Company in New York City in 1945. Farrar, of Farrar & Rinehart, left that firm in 1944 after returning from overseas duty in the Office of War Information. Straus, in addition to a background in journalism and magazine editing, had the necessary financial resources to launch a publishing house; Straus' mother was a Guggenheim, and his father's family were the Strauses who owned Macy's. The original board included Farrar as chairman, Straus as president and chief executive officer, and Stanley Young, the well-known author and literary critic for the New York Times.

The company's first title, issued under a joint imprint with Duell, Sloan & Pearce, was Yank, the G.I Story of the War, a compilation of material from Yank, the Army's famous weekly publication. The first list included James Branch Cabell's There Were Two Pirates, a posthumous collection of short stories by Stephen Vincent Ben?t, an historical novel by Willa Gibbs, and Theodor Reik's Ritual: Psychoanalytic Studies, none of which were substantially lucrative.

Despite publishing such works of quality as Carlo Levi's Christ Stopped at Eboli (1947), Shirley Jackson's The Lottery (1949) and Alberto Moravia's The Woman of Rome (1949), the company remained in financial ill health until 1950. In that year, however, the firm successfully executed a number of coups saving it from ruin and placing it on the road to prominence. Early that year, (Benjamin) Gayelord Hauser, the popular fitness expert, having recently left the house of CowardMcCann, Inc., published Look Younger, Live Longer, partly ghost-written by Frances Warfield Hackett, with Farrar, Straus & Company. The book was a shot in the arm for the fledgling house, selling 300,000 copies in 1950 and 500,000 during the next ten years. The company executed another coup that year when Edmund Wilson left Doubleday due to a dispute over a legal bill and joined the Farrar, Straus & Company list. Straus also contracted for a collection of essays by Wilson which Random House had turned down the previous year. The essays were published in 1950 as Classics and Commercials, a literary chronicle of the 1940s. Wilson would remain on the company's list for the rest of his life.

Also in 1950, Andr? Gide was added to the list, and Rabbi Philip S. Bernstein's What the Jews Believe and Quentin Reynold's Courtroom proved to be bestsellers. With Young's rise to the rank of editor in December, the company underwent the first of many changes in name, becoming Farrar, Straus & Young. The following year witnessed yet another substantial step forward as the company acquired Creative Age Press from Eileen Garrett, thereby adding Robert Graves, Gerald Sykes and James Reynolds to its list.

In 1953, the acquisition of the Chicago company of Pellegrini & Cudahy brought with it not only the children's book company of Ariel Books but also a new partner, Sheila Cudahy, who replaced Young after he resigned his managerial and editorial functions, while still remaining a member of the board. After briefly changing its name back to Farrar, Straus & Company, the firm became Farrar, Straus & Cudahy in 1955. Cudahy added many authors of Catholic interest to the firm's list. Accordingly, 1955 saw the beginning of Vision Books, a series of biographies of Catholic saints, martyrs and heroic figures designed for young (nine- to thirteen-year-old) readers. In the same vein, 1958 saw the acquisition of the Catholic publishing company of McMullen Books, Inc. The firm further established its reputation as a house of quality during the 1950s by publishing Marguerite Yourcenar's Hadrian's Memoirs as well as The Mask of Innocence and The Lamb written by the Nobel Laureate Fran?ois Mauriac.

In 1955, Robert Giroux joined the firm as both editor-in-chief and vice-president. Giroux's first editing experience, while a student at Columbia University, was for The Columbia Review in which he published such future Farrar, Straus & Giroux authors as John Berryman and Thomas Merton. Giroux had been editor-in-chief of Harcourt Brace & Company since 1948 when he left for Farrar, Straus

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