[Deathwatch] Roger W. Straus Jr., publisher, 87

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

Legendary publisher Roger Straus dead
Founded Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Thursday, May 27, 2004 

NEW YORK (AP) -- Roger W. Straus Jr., a Guggenheim heir who co-founded
one of the great publishing houses of the 20th century, has died. He
was 87.

He died Tuesday of pneumonia at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan,
according to his son, Roger Straus III.

The longtime head of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, he was among the last of
the true old-fashioned publishers. He ran his own company for more than
half a century, holding on even as the book world evolved from a small,
clannish community to an increasingly impersonal, money-minded
business.

In 1945, Straus and fellow publisher John Farrar formed Farrar, Straus
& Company, Inc., eventually becoming known for emphasizing literary
quality over commercial success. It often achieved both. Its reputation
became all the greater in 1955 when editor Robert Giroux was hired from
Harcourt, Brace, bringing with him T.S. Eliot, Flannery O'Connor,
Bernard Malamud, Robert Lowell and many other major authors.

"The single most important thing to happen to this company was the
arrival of Bob Giroux," Straus later said.

Farrar, Straus & Giroux, the company's eventual name, published a
number of Nobel laureates, including Eliot, Nadine Gordimer, Isaac
Bashevis Singer and Seamus Heaney. Straus was regarded as a blunt,
profane, but loyal executive.

"He always made sure, every time I visited the office, that he was the
first person to come out and greet me. He would always sweep into the
room to say hello," Alice McDermott, author of such acclaimed fiction
as "That Night" and "Charming Billy," said Thursday.

"Oh, my goodness, he was such a character! When I met him, I felt like
I had stepped into a Noel Coward play. He was wonderful, everything you
imagined a New York literary publisher should be like, with his ascot
and his wealthy accent and his charm and his humor."

Straus believed it necessary to be "an international publisher, at ease
in the world of letters," and he had great success attracting authors
from around the world. In 1971, for instance, he acquired American
rights to Alexander Solzhenitsyn's classic novel "August 1914." Because
of FSG's prestige, the author's agents accepted a lower advance,
$500,000, than competitors had offered.

Straus disparaged corporate influence, vowing not to be "a division of
Kleenex, or whatever," but FSG sold controlling interest in 1994 to the
German publisher Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck.

Still, the company kept up a near annual tradition of publishing
award-winning novels. Recent works included two Pulitzer Prize winners
(Michael Cunningham's "The Hours" and Jeffrey Eugenides' "Middlesex")
and three National Book Award winners (Susan Sontag's "In America,"
Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections" and Shirley Hazzard's "The Great
Fire").

"Many people have accused me of being an elitist," Straus once said.
"I'm guilty. I am an elitist. I like good books."
Wealthy family

Although known for being tight with money, Straus didn't need to worry
unduly about profits. He was a member of one of the country's
wealthiest families.

The second of three children, Straus was born in New York City in 1917.
His mother was Gladys Guggenheim, daughter of Daniel Guggenheim, part
of the Guggenheim dynasty. His father, Roger W. Straus, was chairman of
the Guggenheim-owned American Smelting and Refining Co. His paternal
grandfather, Oscar S. Straus, became the first Jew to hold a Cabinet
position when he served as President Theodore Roosevelt's secretary of
commerce and labor.

In 1939, Roger Straus Jr. graduated with a journalism degree from the
University of Missouri. He worked as an editor and reporter at a
variety of publications, enlisted in the Navy during World War II and
soon after his discharge went into business with Farrar, who died in
1974.

"Newspapers wrap up fish," Straus told The New Yorker for a 2002
profile. "Books are in the library forever. I decided to start a
book-publishing house of my own."

Straus was married in 1938 to Dorothea Leibman, a childhood friend and
descendant of the Rheingold brewing family. Their only child, Roger
3rd, worked for years at FSG but left in the early '90s because of
"philosophical differences."

Besides his son, he is survived by his wife and three grandchildren.