 |
|
| James Atlas | |
James Atlas, "a leading figure in New York literary circles as an editor and publisher and as a writer whose books included well-regarded biographies of Saul Bellow and the poet Delmore Schwartz," died September 4, the New York Times reported. He was 70.
Atlas wrote his first biography, Delmore Schwartz: The Life of an American Poet (1977), when he was in his 20s, and four decades later detailed his "obsession with biography" in The Shadow in the Garden: A Biographer's Tale (2017). His Bellow: A Biography was published in 2000, followed in 2005 by My Life in the Middle Ages: A Survivor's Tale, in which he observed: "As I write these words, I'm on the threshold of late middle age, which imposes a biological deadline far more terrifying than the demands of any editor."
"He further spread the gospel of biography as the founder of the Penguin Lives book series, a joint venture of Penguin and Lipper Books that he conceived around 1996 as he was struggling with his Bellow biography," the Times wrote. The "eclectic and much admired series" included more than 30 books, among Jimmy Breslin on Branch Rickey, Mary Gordon on Joan of Arc, Christopher Hitchens on Thomas Jefferson and Larry McMurtry on Crazy Horse.
Atlas resurrected the idea in 2003 by launching the Eminent Lives series, a joint venture of HarperCollins and his newly formed Atlas Publishing (later Atlas & Co.). He also established the Great Discoveries series for Norton, exploring science and mathematics.
In a 2008 interview with the Times, Atlas said, "I did not long ago spy on the shelf of an airport bookshop in Oslo a copy of the Modern Library edition of my Bellow." It was shelved alongside Losing It--and Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time by Valerie Bertinelli and a collection of Alan Bennett's essays. "One ignominious feature of the biographer's life is that your books get shelved alphabetically by your subject's name rather than your own. But I was totally fine with that."
On Twitter, PEN America wrote: "We are saddened to hear that editor, publisher, writer, and PEN America Member James Atlas has passed away. His legacy as an ambassador of biographies will continue to impact and inspire the literary world."