Alfred A. Knopf

• 1. Founding And Early Years

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  In 1915, Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf launched a publishing house with just $5,000 from his father Samuel Knopf. Their first office sat inside New York's Candler Building. The couple traveled abroad regularly to find European writers for American readers. They published French author Émile Augier's Four Plays alongside Russian writer Nikolai Gogol's Taras Bulba. Polish novelist Stanisław Przybyszewski contributed Homo Sapiens while Guy de Maupassant offered Yvette, a Novelette, and Ten Other Stories. During World War I these books were cheap to obtain and helped establish Knopf as an American firm publishing European works. Their first bestseller was a new edition of Green Mansions by W. H. Hudson which went through nine printings by 1919 and sold over 20,000 copies. The first original American novel appeared in 1917 titled The Three Black Pennys by Joseph Hergesheimer.

• 2. The Borzoi Brand Identity

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  Blanche Knopf designed the Russian wolfhound logo in 1925 to serve as the company's visual signature. She suggested the Borzoi to imply motion on both the spine and title page of their books. Beginning in 1920, Knopf produced a chapbook called The Borzoi to promote new titles. Sometimes they issued it quarterly as The Borzoi Quarterly. For Floyd Dell's coming-of-age novel Moon-Calf they paid men to walk the streets of the financial and theatre districts dressed in artist costumes with sandwich boards. The placards had a copy of the book for browsing and directed interested buyers to local book shops. This unique look along with innovative advertising drew Willa Cather away from her previous publisher Houghton Mifflin. She published sixteen books with Knopf including their first Pulitzer Prize winner One of Ours.

• 3. Editorial Leadership And Authors

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  Judith Jones joined Knopf in 1957 after discovering Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl while working at Doubleday. She acquired Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking for the firm before retiring in 2011 as senior editor and vice-president. Her career included work with John Updike and Anne Tyler. Harold Strauss handled Japanese literature while Herbert Weinstock focused on biographies of musical composers. Peter Mendelsund served as art director and book cover designer alongside Bobbie Bristol and Angus Cameron. Alfred A. Knopf Sr. led until Robert Gottlieb took over then Sonny Mehta who died in 2019 followed by Jordan Pavlin. The roster includes James Baldwin, Albert Camus, Gabriel García Márquez, Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, and Kazuo Ishiguro among many others.

• 4. Corporate Acquisitions And Mergers

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  Random House acquired Alfred A. Knopf in 1960 following Alfred Jr.'s departure to found Atheneum Books in 1959. William A. Koshland joined the company in 1934 and worked there for more than fifty years rising to president and chairman of the board. Blanche became president in 1957 when Alfred became chairman of the board and worked steadily until her death in 1966. Alfred Knopf retired in 1972 becoming chairman emeritus until his death in 1984. Random House was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998. In late 2008 and early 2009 the Knopf Publishing Group merged with Doubleday to form the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. The merger completed on the 1st of July 2013 creating Penguin Random House owned 53% by Bertelsmann and 47% by Pearson PLC. At that time the combined companies controlled 25% of the book business with over 10,000 employees and about $3.9 billion in annual revenues.

• 5. Awards And Literary Legacy

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  Knopf has published numerous Pulitzer Prize winners including One of Ours by Willa Cather in 1923 and Beloved by Toni Morrison in 1988. The firm also won National Book Awards such as The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion in 2005 and Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro in 2002. Nobel Prizes in Literature were awarded to authors like Thomas Mann in 1929, Albert Camus in 1957, Gabriel García Márquez in 1982, and Kazuo Ishiguro in 2017. Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet sold only 1,159 copies in its first year but doubled sales the next year becoming one of the most successful books. Approaching its 100th anniversary in 2023 The Prophet has been translated into over 100 languages and never gone out of print for Knopf. In 2015 the company celebrated its centennial by publishing Alfred A. Knopf, 1915, 2015: A Century of Publishing.