Alfred A. Knopf Jr. (1919-2009)

Alfred A. Knopf Jr., son of the founders of Knopf, who left the company in a dispute with his parents over their successor and founded Atheneum Publishers, died on Saturday at age 90. His death was due to “complications following a fall,” according to a New York Times obituary by Chirstopher Lehmann-Haupt. Knopf did not originally intend on getting into publishing, reports Lehmann-Haupt: “The summer after he graduated from Exeter … he ran away from home, despondent over being turned down by Princeton and determined (he said in a note) not to return until he made good. Following a police search, he was found in Salt Lake City, “barefoot, hungry and broke.” At first he did well at Atheneum, with a series of number one bestsellers including Theodore H. White’s The Making of the President, 1960. On the other hand, after publishing Mario Puzo‘s The Fortunate Pilgrim, Ahteneum rejected his follow-up, The Godfather. Finding it harder and harder to survive as an independent, Knopf and his partners eventually merged Atheneum with Charles Scribner’s Sons, which was eventually taken over by Macmillan. He retired in 1988.