Background

He was born in Burlington, Vermont, the son of Edward D. Farrar and Sally Wright.

Education

He received his B. A. degree from Yale in 1919, a year later than his class of 1918 because of his absence from the campus while serving in the air corps during World War I. Farrar was a reporter on the New York World from 1919 to 1921, when he became editor of a new literary magazine published by George H. Doran, The Bookman.

Career

His first job in book publishing came in 1925, when Doran made him editor of his book company. On the merger of Doran with Doubleday in 1927, Farrar became a director of the combined firm of Doubleday, Doran, where he and Stanley Rinehart, a fellow editor, acquired John Brown's Body, the famous historical poem by Stephen Vincent Benet, who had been Farrar's classmate at Yale.

In 1929, Farrar launched the publishing house of Farrar and Rinehart, with the financial backing of a popular mystery writer and playwright, Mary Roberts Rinehart, and her sons, Stanley and Frederick.

In 1933, Stephen Vincent Benet, the firm's principal reader, urged the publication of Hervey Allen's long historical novel, Anthony Adverse, which became a national best-seller despite its unprecedentedly high price of three dollars.

During World War II, while chairman of the board of Farrar and Rinehart, Farrar volunteered to take charge of the overseas publications for the Office of War Information.

By the war's end he had broken with the Rinehart brothers.

At that time Roger W. Straus was leaving the U. S. Navy to start a publishing firm and asked Farrar to join him as a partner in launching Farrar, Straus and Company.

In the fall of 1946, the company (which in 1964 became Farrar, Straus and Giroux) issued as its first book, James Branch Cabell's There Were Two Pirates.

Among the firm's early successes were Carlo Levi's Christ Stopped at Eboli (1947) and Shirley Jackson's The Lottery (1949). Perhaps Farrar's most notable acquisition was Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time (1962), a book previously rejected by twenty-six publishers.

In addition to his long career as a book editor and publisher, Farrar was noted for his interest in and encouragement of new and promising writers.

Farrar's reputation endures as a publisher of integrity, as a friend of younger writers, as an enemy of censorship, and as a supporter of high literary standards in an era of increasing commercialism.

Achievements

• In 1926, he had helped to create and found, with Robert Frost, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference at Middlebury College in Vermont. In the 1920's, he also helped to revive the New York center of the international PEN, a writers' advocacy group, becoming its president in 1951. Then in 1929 he was a founder of the house of Farrar & Rinehart, with Stanley M. Rinehart Jr. and Frederick R. Rinehart, sons of Mary Roberts Rinehart who had also been at Doubleday Doran.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Bookman anthology of verse, 1922

    (Leopold Classic Library is delighted to publish this clas...)

  • Forgotten shrines

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • Forgotten Shrines
  • Songs for Parents
  • Songs for Johnny-Jump-Up,
  • The literary spotlight.
  • The Bookman Anthology Of Verse, First Series
  • The middle twenties,

Membership

He was a member of Skull and Bones.

Connections

In 1926, he married Margaret Petherbridge; they had three children. She was for decades the crossword-puzzle editor of the New York Times and also pioneered in the publication of crossword-puzzle books at Simon and Schuster.

Father:

Edward D. Farrar

mother Sally Wright

Wife:

Margaret Petherbridge

Partner:

Roger W. Straus

At that time Roger W. Straus was leaving the U.S. Navy to start a publishing firm and asked Farrar to join him as a partner in launching Farrar, Straus and Company.

Partner:

Robert Frost

partner Stanley M. Rinehart Jr. partner Frederick R. Rinehart