:James Atlas
{{Short description|American writer, editor, and publisher (1949–2019)}}
James Robert Atlas (March 22, 1949 – September 4, 2019) was a writer, especially of biographies, as well as a publisher.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/books/james-atlas-dead.html|title=James Atlas, an Ambassador for Biographies, Dies at 70|last=Genzlinger|first=Neil|date=2019-09-05|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-10-05|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}} He was the president of Atlas & Company and founding editor of the Penguin Lives Series.{{Cite web|url=https://atlasandco.com/about-us/|title=About Us {{!}} Atlas And Co|language=en-US|access-date=2019-10-05|archive-date=2015-06-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150630044903/http://atlasandco.com/about-us|url-status=dead}}
Early life and education
Atlas was born in Evanston, Illinois, to Donald and Nora (Glassenberg) Atlas. His father was a physician and his mother was a homemaker. Atlas graduated in 1967 from high school in Evanston, during the turmoil of the 1960s.
He studied at Harvard under Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop with the intention of becoming a poet. He went to Oxford and studied under the biographer Richard Ellmann, as a Rhodes Scholar. During his time at Oxford he was inspired to become a biographer.
Career
Atlas was a contributor to The New Yorker, and he was an editor at The New York Times Magazine for many years.{{cite web|url=http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/14935/James_Atlas/index.aspx|title=author-details|author=World Archipelago|work=harpercollins.com|access-date=24 March 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140331015510/http://harpercollins.com/authors/14935/James_Atlas/index.aspx|archive-date=31 March 2014|url-status=dead}} He edited volumes of poetry and wrote several novels and two biographies. In 2002, he started Atlas Books, which at one time published two series in conjunction with HarperCollins and W. W. Norton. In 2007, the company was renamed Atlas & Company, to coincide with the launch of its new list. Atlas joined Amazon Publishing and Atlas & Company stopped publishing new titles in 2012.{{Cite web| title = James Atlas Joins Amazon Publishing; Atlas & Co. Stops Releasing New Titles| work = PublishersWeekly.com| access-date = 2020-07-17| url = https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/50906-james-atlas-joins-amazon-publishing-atlas-co-stops-releasing-new-titles.html}}
Atlas's work appeared in The New York Times Book Review,{{cite web|url=http://www.nybooks.com/authors/2103|title=James Atlas - The New York Review of Books|work=nybooks.com|access-date=24 March 2015}} The New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, Vanity Fair, Harper's Magazine,{{cite web|url=http://harpers.org/subjects/JamesAtlas|title=James Atlas|work=harpers.org|access-date=24 March 2015}} New York magazine,{{cite web|url=http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/bizfinance/biz/features/11081/|title=Learning to Live with Failure in New York City|work=NYMag.com|date=11 February 2005 |access-date=24 March 2015}} and The Huffington Post.{{cite news| url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-atlas | work=Huffington Post | first=James | last=Atlas | title=James Atlas}}
Personal life and death
In 1975 he married psychiatrist Dr. Anna Fels. Atlas died in Manhattan, New York on September 4, 2019, from complications of a lung condition. He was survived by his wife and a son, daughter, and grandson.
Works
- Ten American Poets: An Anthology of Poems, Cheadle: Carcanet Press, 1973
- Delmore Schwartz: The Life of an American Poet, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1977 (nominated for the National Book Award)
- The Great Pretender (fiction), New York: Atheneum, 1986.
- Battle of the Books: The Curriculum Debate in America, New York: W.W. Norton, 1993
- Bellow: A Biography, New York: Random House and London: Faber, 2000 (He is also the editor of Saul Bellow's collection of novels in Library of America)
- My Life in the Middle Ages: A Survivor's Tale, New York: HarperCollins, 2005 (An adaptation of a series of articles he did for The New Yorker, and The Great Pretender, a semi-autobiographical novel about coming of age in the 1960s. He is a longtime board member of the Harvard Advocate, which has previously published his work).
- {{cite book|title=How They See Us: Meditations on America|year=2009|publisher=Atlas|isbn=978-1-934633-10-6|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781934633106}}, (editor) regarding some global views of America.
- The Shadow in the Garden: A Biographer's Tale, New York: Pantheon Books, 2017
References
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External links
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20081018055447/http://www.observer.com/2008/media/baby-it-s-going-be-cold-outside-book-publishing New York Observer article mentions Atlas's postponement of spring 2009 list]
- [http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6437722.html/ Publishers Weekly article, "Atlas Books Starts New Line,"]
- [http://www.atlasandco.com/ Atlas & Co.]
- {{C-SPAN|38870}}
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Category:American Rhodes Scholars
Category:American book publishers (people)
Category:Harvard University alumni
Category:Evanston Township High School alumni
Category:21st-century American male writers
Category:21st-century American biographers
Category:Writers from Evanston, Illinois
Category:The New Yorker people
Category:20th-century American biographers
Category:20th-century American journalists
Category:American male journalists