The Time of Their Lives

In his history of mid-century publishing, heads of houses like Alfred Knopf, Bennett Cerf of Random House, Cass Canfield of Harper's, the Doubleday fathers and sons, and the Thornhills of Little, Brown come to the fore.Along with houses that go back to the mid-1800s, Al Silverman covers publishing's post-WWII newcomers such as Roger Straus, who started Farrar, Straus in 1946, and amassed nineteen Nobel Prizes in his time; and Barney Rosset, whose Grove Press freed such banned authors as D.H. Lawrence and Henry Miller. He takes a close look at the Paperback Revolution of the 1950s and the 1960s, focusing on its two grandmasters - Victor Weybright of NAL and Oscar Dystel of Bantam. Silverman pays particular homage to the Golden Age's talented horde of editors, who offer marvellous stories about their authors.