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Farrar, Straus and Giroux

American book publishing company From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger Williams Straus Jr. and John C. Farrar.[3] FSG is known for publishing literary books, and its authors have won numerous awards, including Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, and Nobel Prizes. As of 1993, the publisher has been a division of Macmillan, whose parent company is the German publishing conglomerate Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.[4]

Quick Facts Parent company, Founded ...
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Parent companyMacmillan Publishers
Founded1946; 79 years ago (1946)
Founder
Country of originUnited States
Headquarters locationEquitable Building
New York City, New York
Distribution
Key people
ImprintsMCD, FSG Originals, AUWA, Quanta Books, North Point Press, Hill and Wang
Official websitewww.fsgbooks.com
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Founding

Summarize
Perspective

Farrar, Straus, and Company was founded in 1945[5] by Roger W. Straus Jr. and John C. Farrar.[3][6] The first book was Yank: The G.I. Story of the War, a compilation of articles that appeared in Yank, the Army Weekly, then There Were Two Pirates, a novel by James Branch Cabell.

The first years of existence were rough until they published the diet book Look Younger, Live Longer by Gayelord Hauser in 1950. The book went on to sell 500,000 copies and Straus said that the book carried them along for a while.[3] In the early years, Straus and his wife Dorothea, went prospecting for books in Italy. It was there that they found the memoir Christ Stopped at Eboli by Carlo Levi and other rising Italian authors: Alberto Moravia, Giovannino Guareschi and Cesare Pavese.[3] Farrar, Straus also poached or lured away authors from other publishers—one was Edmund Wilson, who was unhappy with Random House at the time but remained with Farrar, Straus for the remainder of his career.[3]

In 1950, the name changed to Farrar, Straus & Young (for Stanley Young, a playwright, author (at Farrar & Rinehart[7]), a literary critic for The New York Times, and an original stockholder and board member).[8][9][10]

Merger

In 1953, Pellegrini & Cudahy merged with Farrar, Straus & Young.[11]

Robert Giroux joined the company in 1955, and after he later became a partner, the name was changed to Farrar, Straus and Giroux.[3] Giroux had been working for Harcourt and had been angered when Harcourt refused to allow him to publish Salinger's Catcher in the Rye.[3] Giroux brought many literary authors with him including Thomas Merton, John Berryman, Robert Lowell, Flannery O'Connor, Jack Kerouac, Peter Taylor, Randall Jarrell, T.S. Eliot, and Bernard Malamud.[3] Alan Williams described Giroux's "Pied Piper sweep" as "almost certainly the greatest number of authors to follow, on their own initiative, a single editor from house to house in the history of modern publishing."[3] In 1964, Straus named Giroux chairman of the board and officially added Giroux's name to the publishing company.[3]

Sale

Straus continued to run the company for twenty years after his partner Farrar died, until 1993 when he sold a majority interest of the company to the privately owned German publishing conglomerate Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.[3][12][13] Straus offered FSG to the Holtzbrinck family because of their reputation for publishing serious works of literature.[3]

21st century

Jonathan Galassi served as both president and publisher until 2018.[14] From 2004 to 2021, Andrew Mandel served as deputy publisher. In 2008, Mitzi Angel came from Fourth Estate in the UK to be publisher of the Faber and Faber Inc. imprint. In 2018, Angel succeeded Galassi as publisher, and was named president in 2021.[15] Jenna Johnson was named vice president and editor in chief in December 2021, taking the baton from Eric Chinski who was named senior executive editor after 15 years as editor in chief.[16] Other notable editors include Sean McDonald and Alex Star.

In February 2015, FSG and Faber and Faber announced the end of their partnership. All books scheduled for release and previously released under the imprint were moved to the FSG colophon by August 2016.[17]

Name history

  • Farrar, Straus, and Company (1945–1951)[18]
  • Farrar, Straus and Young (1950–1956)[19][20]
  • Farrar, Straus and Cudahy (1953–1963)[21][22] – acquired L.C. Page & Co. in 1957[23][24][25]
  • Farrar, Straus, and Company (1963–1964)[26] after Cudahy left the firm.[14]
  • Farrar, Straus and Giroux (1964–present)[27]

Current imprints

  • MCD/FSG, which is viewed as a kind of a lab to experiment with new styles and genres. The imprint is headed by Sean McDonald, who was joined by Daphne Durham, formerly editor-in-chief and publisher of Amazon Publishing, as executive director to launch the imprint. Durham left MCD in 2023 to join Putnum.[28][29][30]
  • FSG Originals
  • AUWA Books is an imprint directed by Questlove, the celebrated musician, producer, director, and author devoted to finding inspiring new stories and connecting readers to lost voices while building a community of curious minds.[31][32]
  • Quanta Books is a partnership between FSG and the Simons Foundation which illuminates humanity’s quest to understand the universe. From the founding editor of Pulitzer Prize-winning Quanta Magazine.[33][34]
  • Hill and Wang[35][36] publishes books of academic interest and specializes in history. Its authors include Roland Barthes, William Cronon, Langston Hughes, and Elie Wiesel.
  • North Point Press published literary nonfiction with an emphasis on natural history, travel, ecology, music, food, and cultural criticism. Its authors include Peter Matthiessen, Beryl Markham, Guy Davenport, A. J. Liebling, Margaret Visser, Wendell Berry, and M. F. K. Fisher.

Former imprints

Bibliography

Main article: List of Farrar, Straus and Giroux books

Books for Young Readers

FSG Books for Young Readers publishes National Book Award winners Madeleine L'Engle (1980), William Steig (1983), Louis Sachar (1998), and Polly Horvath (2003). Books for Young Readers also publishes Natalie Babbitt, Roald Dahl, Jack Gantos, George Selden, Uri Shulevitz, Ozge Samanci, and Peter Sis. FSG Books for Young Readers is operated by Macmillan Children's Publishing Group.[43]

Awards

Winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature
Winners of the Nobel Peace Prize
Winners of the Pulitzer Prize
Winners of the National Book Award

Notable authors

Staff

Jack Kerouac's then-girlfriend Joyce Johnson, started work in 1957, when Sheila Cudahy was a partner at the firm.[47]

References

Further reading

External links

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