Background
Black was born in Queens, New York, New York, the son of John William Black (1861–1956), a newspaper editor, and Flora Elizabeth Blayney (1863–1940).
Black was born in Queens, New York, New York, the son of John William Black (1861–1956), a newspaper editor, and Flora Elizabeth Blayney (1863–1940).
Columbia University; Columbia Law School.
On September 11, 1920, Black married Maude T Bergen (1894–1987), daughter of Benjamin Bergen, and they had one child, Virginia Bergen Black (1924–1994). Black was a lawyer in private practice for many years. When Nelson Doubleday resigned as president in 1946, Black took over and was president of Doubleday and Company from 1946–1963.
By 1947, Doubleday was the largest publisher in the United States, with annual sales of over 30 million books
Black was also involved in trying to publish Vladimir Nabokov"s Lolita in the United States.
Black was a trustee of Columbia University, and a director of The Council on Library Resources.
Black was a keen advocate of freedom of speech, and lost a $60,000 court case defending Edmund Wilson"s Memoirs of Hecate County, which was banned.