Anita Miller, co-founder and longtime editor of Academy Chicago Publishers, died on Saturday, August 4. She was 91.
She and her husband, Jordan Miller, who survives her, founded Academy Press in 1976. In the early 1980s, they changed the name to Academy Chicago Publishers and, in 2014, sold the company to Chicago Review Press, which has kept the imprint and its extensive backlist alive. During the Millers' ownership, Academy Chicago published a range of distinctive fiction and nonfiction, including many original titles as well as imports from Virago, the British feminist literary house, and Granada.
Miller worked as an editor and book doctor on hundreds of books during her career. Highlights include Peculiar People: The Story of My Life by Augustus Hare, which she co-edited from the author's six-volume original into one volume; Complete Transcripts of the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill Hearings: October 11, 12, 13, 1991, which included a preface by Nina Totenberg; and Four Classic Ghostly Tales.
Among the books Miller wrote was Uncollecting Cheever: The Family of John Cheever vs. Academy Chicago Publishers, about the Cheever family's lawsuits against the press involving a proposed collection of little-known short stories by the author. She also wrote Tea and Antipathy: An American Family in Swinging London, a '60s memoir, and co-wrote Sharon: Israel's Warrior-Politician.
In the 1960s, she was one of the few women to receive a Ph.D. in English literature from Northwestern University and taught at Northwestern and the University of Wisconsin. Her dissertation, Arnold Bennett: An Annotated Bibliography, 1887-1932, was published by Garland Publishing in 1977.
In addition, she translated In a Dark Wood Wandering, a novel by Hella S. Hassee, set during the Hundred Years War, from the Dutch.
In 1996, she won the Women in Publishing's Pandora Award for an "outstanding contribution to the achievements of women in publishing and related fields."
Besides her husband, survivors include three sons involved in books and publishing. Bruce Joshua Miller heads Miller Trade Book Marketing, the commission rep group. Eric Lincoln Miller was involved in Miller Trade Book Marketing for many years, was publisher of Wicker Park Books and is now head of 3iBooks. Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media studies at New York University, has written several books, most recently Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy 2000-2008. He is also the editor of the Forbidden Bookshelf series.
A memorial service will be held on Friday, August 31, from 4:30 to 7 p.m. at the Self Help Home, 908 W. Argyle, Chicago, Ill.