Monroe Wheeler - Publisher

photo by Christopher Stephens 1979

Monroe Wheeler walked into Canfield & Stephens Rare Books too late. The store was closed. The books had been sent to auction. Chris Stephens was dismantling bookshelves.

Wheeler looked around. "What's going on here? Are you remodeling?"

"I have some books."

He certainly did! He pulled 6 books out of a battered leather briefcase that didn't go with his sharp suit, white shirt and nice tie. The books were beautiful ones from Harrison of Paris Press.

Monroe Wheeler and Barbara Harrison published Harrison of Paris books from 1930 to 1934.

Some of the books Wheeler pulled out of the briefcase were limiteds or super limiteds. Chris wanted them. Monroe wanted to sell them. For cash.

Stephens explained the situation. Canfield & Stephens was disbanded and he didn't have sufficient personal cash in his pocket. Wheeler agreed to accept Chris' personal check "this once".

"I have lots more books in my apartment," said Wheeler. Monroe Wheeler lived with Glenway Wescott in an apartment on 51st between 2nd and 3rd Avenues - just around the corner from the closed Canfield & Stephens. There were handsome glass-covered bookshelves in the apartment and they were handsomely filled. There was one copy of each state of each Harrison of Paris publications on the shelves but there were plenty more tucked around the apartment. There were stacks of books in manilla envelopes or wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.

Again and again Chris Stephens put cash in his pockets and visited the book paradise. Stephens bought multiple copies of Venus and Adonis and The Typographical Commonplace Book and Hacienda and The Wild West and others.

Aesop's Fables was illustrated by Alexander Calder. Harrison of Paris did a special edition of 50, each with an original Calder drawing slipped in. After Chris had purchased several of these, he came to realize that the drawings were not put into a book until it was purchased. Wescott and Wheeler had a big folder thick with Calder drawings. Eventually Chris was allowed to select his drawing each time he bought another Fables. He thought it quite a grand thing to browse through that folder of Calder drawings.

Monroe Wheeler was old when Chris Stephens met him, but he was lively and sharp. He could remember details about the books and the people involved. He remembered, for instance, about H.T. Lowe-Porter's shabby translation of Thomas Mann's A Sketch of My Life.

Monroe and Wescott were appalled. The translation was sloppy and graceless. What could they do?

They could translate. The two of them worked on it together. They kept the respected Lowe-Porter name as the translator, but not the translation that they didn't respect. They used their own.

Harrison of Paris press list

Frognall Dibdin's book blog

biographical notes on Monroe Wheeler

1988 NY Times obituary for Wheeler

1987 NY Times obit for Glenway Wescott

Glenway Wescott Personally a biography - book

Alexander Calder web site

Sixty Photographs - Alfred A. Knopf Sr & Jr

Alfred Knopf took photos of many of the intriguing people he and his wife, Blanche, had as friends and associates. Sixty of these photographs were selected to publish in the book, Sixty Photographs, which commemorated the sixtieth anniversary of Alfred A. Knopf, Publisher. The book was published in 1975.

Knopf started his publishing company in 1915. He and Blanche, ran it as a family business until 1959 when their son left Knopf Publishing to to start Atheneum. At that time Knopf blended in, quite happily, with Random House.

I love this book. The front cover of Sixty Photographs shows A.A.K. himself, as a young man, seated comfortably in a meadow a few years before he founded his publishing company. The back cover shows him as an old man seated comfortably in a similar meadow. On the pages in between, Knopf gives us a treat. The photographs have the unstudied charm of the enthusiastic amateur photographer. Unpolished, they're more intimate. Knopf includes anecdotes to accompany each picture. They read like a conversation. You and he are flipping through the photos and he's recollecting the people and the circumstances. Sixty Photographs is a heartening glimpse of a mid-20th century world of literature and art and music and publishing and friendship.

This book is readily available. You can get one easily at your local bookstore or over the internet. We got ours from Pat Knopf.

In the late 1970s Alfred A. Knopf, Jr invited Christopher P. Stephens up to his house in Connecticut to look at books. Of course Chris went. There were lots of books, nicely arranged on handsome shelves. Chris expressed interest in buying a beautifully inscribed author collection. "Oh no," said Pat. "Those are going to my daughter." Chris ended up with 3 or 4 cartons of good books that weren't going to Knopf's daughters or son. He brought them back to Canfield Stephens Books.

Pat Knopf was friendly and easy to talk to, says Chris. They talked books. They talked publishing. Knopf had been in publishing since his infancy. Chris expected him to have tons of ephemera tucked away in boxes and drawers. Chris expected piles of papers on the floors and desk tops and bursting forth from cupboards. There was no evidence of any of this.

"Don't you have any junky stuff around somewhere?" he asked.

Pat was bewildered. "What do you mean?"

"You know," Chris coaxed him. "Galleys. Proofs. Letters from authors. Production correspondance."

Knopf dismissed it all with a wave of the hand. "I don't keep any of that. I throw it all out when I'm through with it."

Although Pat Knopf threw out much that Stephens would have liked to buy, Chris still left happy. He had some very fine books. He brought Sixty Photographs home for our personal bookshelves.

That volume had to get used to quite a different environment. At our house we do have a lot of junky stuff around.

Alfred A. Knopf 1892 - 1984

Pat Knopf 1918 - 2009

A brief biography of Alfred Abraham Knopf, Sr. by Columbia University

The Alfred A. and Blanch Knopf Collection at University of Texas at Austin

NY Times Obituary for Alfred A. Knopf, Jr.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/16/books/16knopf.html

new store

In the spring of 1975 Chris Stephens and Cass Canfield opened a bookstore on 67th Street between Madison and 5th Avenue.

Canfield Stephens Books

photo by Jerome Frank, April 1978

Together Christopher P. Stephens and Cass Canfield opened a very classy store on 57th Street between Madison and 5th in New York City. The store was called Canfield Stephens Books.

Cass had led a life full of vivid adventure. He'd walked across China for example. Many of his best adventures were literary ones. Cass was senior editor at Harper & Brothers, later Harper & Row. He knew collectors, authors and publishing leaders as well as a host of interesting people in various fields.

Chris had a second floor store on Madison and 34th Street. He was 35 years old, struggling to sell enough books to pay the rent and keep buying more books. The invitation to join Canfield seemed an incredible opportunity. It was.

Canfield Stephens Books was an exceptional store. The books and prints were superb. It's a shame the store winked out of existence in just less than a year. The men had different goals and the weight of expenses made it difficult for all goals to be met.

It was great fun while it lasted. One of the best aspects for Chris was the friendly and fascinating association with Cass Canfield.