Alfred A Knopf
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| Parent company | Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |
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| Founded | 1915 |
| Founder | Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Headquarters location | New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Official website | knopf |
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. in 1915. The publisher had a reputation for a pursuit of perfection and elegant taste. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. The Knopf publishing house is associated with its borzoi colophon (shown at right), which was designed by co-founder Blanche Knopf in 1925.
Knopf was founded in 1915 by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. with a $5,000 advance from his father. The first office was located in New York's Candler Building. The publishing house was officially incorporated in 1918, with Alfred Knopf as president, Blanche Knopf as vice-president, and Samuel Knopf as treasurer. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers in addition to leading American literary trends. Samuel Knopf died in 1932. William A. Koshland joined the company in 1934, and worked with the firm for more than fifty years, rising to take the positions of President and Chairman of the Board. Blanche became President in 1957 when Alfred became Chairman of the Board, and worked steadily for the firm until her death in 1966. Alfred Knopf retired in 1972, becoming chairman emeritus of the firm until his death in 1984. Alfred Knopf also had a summer home in Purchase, New York.
Beginning in 1920, Knopf also produced a chapbook, for the purpose of promoting new books. was published periodically over the years, the first being a hardback called the Borzoi and sometimes quarterly as the Borzoi Quarterly. In 1923 Knopf also started publishing periodicals, beginning with The American Mercury, founded by H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan, which it published through 1934.
Following the Good Neighbor policy, Blanche Knopf visited South America in 1942, so the firm could start producing texts from there. She was one of the first publishers to visit Europe after World War II. Her trips, and those of other editors, brought in new writers from Europe, South America, and Asia. Alfred traveled to Brazil in 1961, which spurred a corresponding interest on his part in South America. Their son, Alfred "Pat" Jr., was hired on as secretary and trade books manager after the war.
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