Photo of Knopf and her husband, Alfred, taken by Carl Van Vechten at https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/079_vanv.html]

Book publishing is a tricky business. Over the decades we’ve gone from tiny presses to a few dozen large publishing houses to gigantic corporations that have sucked in some of the groundbreaking publishers of the past. Today we can still find the unique books from Knopf, even though they are currently part of Penguin/Random House. What makes Knopf stand out is the legacy of Blanche Wolf Knopf.

On July 30, 1893 or 1894, Knopf was born in New York City to Jewish parents of some means, though the details of their lives seem to vary from one source to another. She had a well-rounded education and was fond of languages. Her father, Julius Wolf, was either a jeweler or a milliner, while her mother, Bertha Samuels Wolf, was the daughter of a cattle exporter and became a homemaker.

Knopf connected with her future husband and business partner, Alfred A. Knopf, over their shared love for books in 1911, during the Wolf family summer in Lawrence, Long Island. Alfred was the one to push the idea of diving into the publishing world, which at that time was not welcoming to Jews. Knopf’s husband wanted to create beautiful books – what was inside of them was of secondary importance to him – but that was not true for her. The couple worked, she as his assistant at first, at the brand-new Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., publishing house in 1915, using funds from her husband’s father and an office in his building. The couple was married in 1916 when she was 21 and he was 23. In 1919, she had her only child, a son, named after his father, but never left her job, even though that would have been expected for most mothers then.

By 1921, she was technically vice president of the company and finally president in 1957, probably because her husband went off to pursue other hobby and professional interests while she remained focused on books. Her focus over those decades made their publishing house not only respected but profitable. At first the company focused on importing literature instead of competing for American created works. Following Alfred’s wishes, the company turned to European works printed in English because they were easily read by most Americans and by Alfred himself. Furthermore, copyright and republication rights weren’t as strict as they are today, so they could get the books cheaply.

However, Knopf also knew French and possibly German, so she courted non-English titles. She also pushed their company to publish more fiction and poetry, which expanded the books they put out greatly. Other publishing houses followed Knopf’s leads, and soon European literature was becoming widely sold in the United States. For her work promoting French literature she was given the Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur in 1949 and became an Officier de la Légion d’honneur in 1960 by the French government.

Knopf didn’t limit herself to Europe and took trips to other continents, especially after the rise of Hitler. She started bringing in Latin American authors with both previously published and new works to her press during World War II, while other book companies were either ignoring what was happening in Europe, turning to American authors, or simply reprinting what they already had. Later in her life, Brazil honored her with a medal from their Order of the Southern Cross.

Knopf also published American authors, helping to diversify the brand’s offerings across three continents and multiple languages. Not only that, but Knopf reached out to authors of the Harlem Renaissance. She never refused to read a manuscript or meet an author simply because of race, ethnicity, religion, or gender. Under her care, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., grew to include books that appealed to almost any reader and promoted diversity through offering those readers a look at the world through different eyes.

Even though Knopf claimed, and others agree, that she did at least half the work to make their publishing house successful, she was routinely denied the benefits and accolades that Alfred received. She never owned more than 25% of the business, for example, though she claimed before their marriage they had agreed to be 50/50 partners. She was ignored at the company’s 50th anniversary gala in 1965. Part of the reason for her being overlooked was cultural sexism, but another factor was her husband’s ego; he constantly sought the limelight whenever he was in the room.

Knopf’s own reputation differed based on who was talking about her. She preferred to be called Blanchee W. Knopf and not merely Mrs. Knopf or Alfred’s wife, though some media outlets insisted on using those titles for her. Among the publishing staff she was seen as tough to work with, yet among other publishers and authors she was considered nurturing and encouraging, even if she was making editorial suggestions you didn’t initially like.

Knopf’s marriage was untraditional in many aspects. By the end of the 1920s, they were living apart, and each had other lovers. Their professional and personal time together was often argumentative, yet their correspondence when apart showed affection. It may simply have been that they functioned best each doing their own thing for their business and for most of their personal lives. Interestingly, Knopf’s closest friends were more from the music business than publishing, though she socialized within her professional circle as well.

During the last three years of her life, when she was dying from liver and abdomen cancers, Knopf kept traveling to find new books for their American audience to discover. When she died on June 4, 1966, her husband held a grand funeral for her, even though it was not what she wanted. During her tenure, the press could count 16 Nobel Prize and 27 Pulitzer Prize winners among their roster of authors. Her husband sold the company the year following her death, and her son started his own publishing house. It seems that she really was the heart of their company.