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| Richard Baron | |
Richard Warren Baron, who led the Dial Press through the 1960s and published writers like James Baldwin and Norman Mailer, died on May 9 at his home in New York City. He was 98.
Born in 1923, Baron grew up on New York City's Upper West Side and attended the University of North Carolina before joining the army infantry in World War II. He held the rank of lieutenant, fought at Anzio and spent the final four months of the war as a POW (he would later write the book Raid, which was released in 1981 and discussed his experiences in the war).
During his tenure at the Dial Press, Baron hired E.L. Doctorow as editor-in-chief, brought on Christopher Lehmann-Haupt as an editor, and oversaw the publication of authors such as Baldwin, Mailer, Thomas Berger, Elizabeth Bowen, Leonard Levin, W.R. Burnett, Howard Sackler, Vance Bourjaily and Frank Yerby.
Speaking at Baron's 90th birthday celebration in 2013, Doctorow said: "If anyone was the perfect publisher for the 1960s, it was Richard Baron. He was totally fearless, and he backed us in every crazy thing we would do."
Baron sold part of his interest in the Dial Press to Dell Publishing Company in 1969, eventually divesting the rest. Dell went on to become a part of Doubleday, and in 1985 Doubleday dissolved the imprint. In 1993, Carole Baron, Richard Baron's wife and the head of Dell at the time, revived Dial Press and appointed Susan Kamil to lead the imprint.
Following his departure from the Dial Press, Baron created the Richard W. Baron Publishing Company. The press's major authors included Thomas Berger, Nat Hentoff and Julius Lester. Baron retired from publishing in 1980.