Biography
He was the only child of publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. and Blanche Wolf. He was born in White Plains, New York, on June 17, 1918. At 7, in 1925 he was sent to a boarding school, first at the Riverdale Country School, in the Bronx, New York. From 1933 until 1937 he attended Phillips Exeter Academy.
The summer after he graduated from Exeter he ran away from home, despondent over being turned down by Princeton University. Following a police search, he was found in Salt Lake City, Utah.
During World War II, Knopf joined the Army Air Force and the Mighty Eighth Air Force. During his time in the service, he piloted the B-22 Bomber "Rough Buddy" through almost 100 missions alongside Engineer Richard E. Morton.
In 1952, he married Alice Laine. They had three children, Alison, Susan and David A. Knopf.
He was one of the founders of Atheneum Publishers in 1959. He died on February 14, 2009.
Read more about this topic: Alfred A. Knopf, Jr.
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“As we approached the log house,... the projecting ends of the logs lapping over each other irregularly several feet at the corners gave it a very rich and picturesque look, far removed from the meanness of weather-boards. It was a very spacious, low building, about eighty feet long, with many large apartments ... a style of architecture not described by Vitruvius, I suspect, though possibly hinted at in the biography of Orpheus.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West [Cicily Isabel Fairfield] (1892–1983)