Blanche with Bertha Samuels Wolf and Alfred A. “Pat” Knopf, Jr., 1921
Sam Knopf, Blanche, and Alfred on a midnight sail around Manhattan, circa 1925
Blanche at the riding stables, with her and Alfred’s first Stutz, 1925. They received the car in exchange for advertising in The American Mercury.
Portrait of Blanche, circa 1920s, probably taken by Alfred
Caricature of Blanche by Miguel Covarrubias, circa late 1920s (© Maria Elena Rico Covarrubias)
Willa Cather, circa 1924. “For you, with love, dear Blanche.” (© Nickolas Murray Archives)
Blanche in Baden-Baden, Germany, taking in the sun on a balcony, July 4, 1928
H. L. and Sara Mencken in Jamaica, January 1932 (© Enoch Pratt Free Library, Maryland’s State Library Resource Center. All rights reserved)
Blanche reading a manuscript, January 1936
Blanche with Aldous Huxley in Billings, near Rhinebeck, N.Y., April 25, 1937
Blanche with Jascha Heifetz and Florence Vidor Heifetz, May 1937
Blanche arriving in Vienna at USFA Headquarters (occupation HQ) as the guest of General Mark Clark, July 24, 1945
Blanche (seated center) on the Rhine with the Nuremberg trials prosecutor Justice Robert H. Jackson (seated to Blanche’s left) and the trial group, undated, 1946
Blanche with Alfred, Jr. (“Pat”), in his army uniform in Purchase, April 1945
Blanche reading a manuscript in the morning sun with a magnifying glass, at the Farandole Hotel, Cap d’Antibes, France, August 1949
Blanche and Alfred with Allen Dulles and Alice Roosevelt Longworth at the 1952 early autumn wedding in Washington, D.C., of Mary Bancroft to Robert Taft’s son
Blanche showing the diplomat Sumner Welles her Chevalier of the Order of the Southern Cross medal, Brazilian Embassy, Washington, D.C., November 2, 1950
Thomas Mann at the Dorset Hotel, April 20, 1937
H. L. Mencken in Purchase with Tapiola
Albert Camus, French Cultural Services, 1950s
Luncheon with Blanche, Alfred, Bennett Cerf, and Donald Klopfer, circa 1960, photograph by Peter Stackpole (The LIFE Picture Collection; © Getty Images)
Blanche and Alfred, circa 1965
ALSO BY LAURA CLARIDGE
Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners
Norman Rockwell: A Life
Tamara de Lempicka: A Life of Deco and Decadence
Romantic Potency: The Paradox of Desire
Out of Bounds: Male Writers and Gender(ed) Criticism (coeditor)
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Laura Claridge is the author of biographies of Tamara de Lempicka, Emily Post, and Norman Rockwell. A frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and other publications, she lives in the Hudson Valley. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
INTRODUCTION
PART ONE
1. HUNGRY FOR ADVENTURE
2. THE BOOK LOVERS
3. A THIRD KNOPF
4. A NEW WORLD OUTSIDE HER DOOR
5. WILD SUCCESS
6. BOOKS OF THE TWENTIES
PART TWO
7. HARLEM
8. MENCKEN
9. A WELL OF LONELINESS
10. HER OWN WOMAN
11. LOVER
12. BECOMING FREE
PART THREE
13. MONEY PROBLEMS
14. HARBINGERS OF WAR
15. SIGMUND FREUD, THOMAS MANN, AND OTHERS
16. A MAN OF HER OWN
17. GOING OVERSEAS
18. THE WAR’S END
PART FOUR
19. MORE BATTLES AFTER ALL
20. THE SECOND SEX
21. A WEDDING AND OTHER RIBBONS
22. NEW TERRITORIES
23. A SON’S DEFECTION
24. NO MORE DEALS
EPILOGUE
NOTES
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INDEX
PHOTOGRAPHS
ALSO BY LAURA CLARIDGE
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011
Copyright © 2016 by Laura Claridge
All rights reserved
First edition, 2016
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following material:
“On Love,” from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, copyright © 1923 by Kahlil Gibran and renewed 1951 by Administrators C.T.A. of the Kahlil Gibran Estate and Mary G. Gibran. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Excerpt from The Mind of the South by W. J. Cash, copyright © 1941 by W. J. Cash. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Excerpt from Nigger Heaven by Carl Van Vechten, copyright © 1926 by Carl Van Vechten. Originally published by Alfred A. Knopf. Used by permission of the Carl Van Vechten Trust.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Claridge, Laura P., author.
Title: The lady with the Borzoi: Blanche Knopf, literary tastemaker extraordinaire / Laura Claridge.
Description: First edition. | New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015034660 | ISBN 9780374114251 (hardback) | ISBN 9780374709730 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Knopf, Blanche W., 1894–1966. | Publishers and publishing—New York (State)—New York—Biography. | Women publishers—United States—Biography. | Editors—United States—Biography. | Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.—History. | Knopf, Alfred A., 1892–1984. | Literature publishing—United States—History—20th century. | Authors and publishers—United States—History—20th century. | Books and reading—United States—History—20th century. | BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Editors, Journalists, Publishers.
Classification: LCC Z473.K72 C58 2015 | DDC 070.5092—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/201503466
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