Reminiscences of Bennett Alfred Cerf, 1968.

Biographical Note

Publisher

Scope and Contents

Childhood and education in New York City; Columbia College; SPECTATOR, JESTER; journalism; Wall Street; Boni & Liveright; purchase of Modern Library; partnership with Donald Klopfer; travels and meetings with European authors; marriage to Sylvia Sidney; trip to Russia; building up Random House; contacts with authors, editors, other publishers; marriage to Phyllis Fraser; World War II publishing; TRY AND STOP ME and later books; magazine columns, radio programs, lecture tours; paperbacks, reprints, Bantam books, "What's My Line?"; role of an editor in a publishing house; dictionary and its promotion; purchase of other publishing houses; Singer, Knopf; stock issue, going public, 1959; purchase by Radio Corporation of America, 1965; educational developments, teaching machines; juvenile lists; spurt of growth in all publishing after World War II; purchase of Pantheon; foreign contacts; Peabody Awards Committee; director of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer; Miss America pageant; Famous Writers School; many anecdotes about well known personalities in literary and entertainment fields

Subjects

• American literature--20th century.
• Authors--Interviews.
• Authors and publishers.
• Book trade and industry.
• Cerf, Bennett, 1898-1971--Interviews.
• Consolidation and merger of corporations.
• Hawkins, Robbin, interviewer.--http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/ivr
• Interviews.
• Klopfer, Donald.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Popular culture.
• Publishers and publishing--Interviews.
• Random House (Firm)
• Sidney, Sylvia, 1910-1999.

Access Conditions

Copyright by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, 2005