Charles Angoff (April 22, 1902 – May 3, 1979) was a managing editor of the

American Mercury ''The American Mercury'' was an American magazine published from 1924Staff (Dec. 31, 1923)"Bichloride of Mercury."''Time''. to 1981. It was founded as the brainchild of H. L. Mencken and drama critic George Jean Nathan. The magazine featured wri ...

magazine as well as a professor of English of

Fairleigh Dickinson University Fairleigh Dickinson University is a private university with its main campuses in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Founded in 1942, Fairleigh Dickinson University currently offers more than 100 degree programs to its students. In addition to its tw ...

H. L. Mencken Henry Louis Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, ...

called him "the best managing editor in America." He was also a prolific writer and editor.

Career

Background

Angoff was born on April 22, 1902 in

Minsk Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the admi ...

, Russia Empire. His father was a tailor named John Jacob Angoff; his mother was named Anna Pollack. In 1908, the Angoffs left Russia and settled near

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, Massachusetts. By age 12, he began writing poetry. He became a naturalized citizen in 1923. He studied at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

from 1919 to 1923 on a scholarship and majored in philosophy.

Journalism

In 1923, Angoff began his career in journalism at a local weekly. He answered an advertisement by H. L. Mencken, who hired him as an assistant in 1925. He worked on the editorial staff of Mencken's ''

'' magazine until 1931, when he became managing editor. He wrote articles for the magazine, either signing them with pseudonyms or publishing them anonymously. Mencken and publisher Alfred Knopf felt Angoff was too leftist and sold the magazine privately in January 1935. Angoff joined the editorial board of ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...

'' magazine and then became editor of ''

American Spectator ''The American Spectator'' is a conservative American magazine covering news and politics, edited by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. and published by the non-profit American Spectator Foundation. It was founded in 1967 by Tyrrell, who remains its editor- ...

'' until it folded in 1937. From 1943 to 1951, he served as managing editor of the American Mercury.

Writing

During his final years at the American Mercury, Angoff began publishing more books. When the magazine closed in 1951, he began publishing a series about the Polonskys, a family of assimilating, immigrant Jews. It started with ''Journey to the Dawn'' (1951). The trilogy grew to eleven volumes and unfinished twelfth. He wrote a rather controversial biography, ''H. L. Mencken: A Portrait from Memory'' (1956) about the subject's anti-Semitism. He wrote several books of poetry.

Academics

In the mid-1950s, Angoff became an English professor at

. He co-founded the quarterly ''

The Literary Review ''The Literary Review'' is an American literary magazine founded in 1957. The biannual magazine is published internationally by Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey. In addition to the publication of short stories, poems, an ...

'' and helped found the

Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Fairleigh Dickinson University Press (FDU Press) is a publishing house under the operation and oversight of Fairleigh Dickinson University, the largest private university in New Jersey, which has international campuses in Vancouver, British Colum ...

, launched in 1967. He retired in 1976 to the

Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

Awards received

Angoff was appointed to the Board of Trustees of

New York City Community College The New York City College of Technology (City Tech) is a public college in New York City. Founded in 1946, it is the City University of New York's college of technology. History City Tech was founded in 1946 as The New York State Institute of ...

. He received an honorary Doctor of Letters from

(June 1966). In 1954, he received the

National Jewish Book Award The Jewish Book Council (Hebrew: ), founded in 1944, is an organization encouraging and contributing to Jewish literature. and again in 1969 for ''Memory of Autumn''. Angoff received various other awards (1954-1977).

Charles Angoff Award

The Literary Review offers an annual Charles Angoff Award for outstanding contributions to the magazine during his tenure as editor from 1957 to 1976.

Communist leanings

According to

Whittaker Chambers Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938) ...

in his 1952 memoir, Angoff worked closely with him,

Maxim Lieber Maxim Lieber (October 15, 1897 – April 10, 1993) was a prominent American literary agent in New York City during the 1930s and 1940s. The Soviet spy Whittaker Chambers named him as an accomplice in 1949, and Lieber fled first to Mexico and then ...

, and John Loomis Sherman after they formed the American Feature Writers Syndicate, a front for communist underground agents as overseas cover. Chambers wrote:

Among Lieber's friends was an editor of the American Mercury (not
Eugene Lyons Eugene Lyons (July 1, 1898 – January 7, 1985) was an American journalist and writer. A fellow traveler of Communism in his younger years, Lyons became highly critical of the Soviet Union after several years there as a correspondent of United P ...
, who was still a U .P. correspondent in Moscow) . He gladly furnished a letter telling all whom it might concern that Charles F. Chase was a news gatherer for the Mercury.

During testimony, members of HUAC identified Angoff as the Mercury person by asking: * Of John Sherman - "Did you attend a luncheon with Maxim Lieber, Charles Angoff, and Whittaker Chambers in which you discussed these credentials and the purpose of them?" * Of Maxim Lieber - "Did you attend a luncheon with Charles Angoff and Whittaker Chambers at which you discussed the matter of obtaining credentials for Sherman?"

Personal life

Angoff married Sara Freedman in June 1943. They had a daughter, Nancy Angoff. In 1967, his daughter published ''Marxism and the English Peasants of 1381: a Dream Deferred''. He died on May 3, 1979, aged 77, survived by his wife and daughter.

Works

In his writings, Angoff may have become best known for his non-fiction and fiction works concerning his former boss, H. L. Mencken, and associate

George Jean Nathan George Jean Nathan (February 14, 1882 – April 8, 1958) was an American drama critic and magazine editor. He worked closely with H. L. Mencken, bringing the literary magazine ''The Smart Set'' to prominence as an editor, and co-founding and ...

. As Time magazine wrote in 1961, "Having fanged his ex-idol non-fictionally in ''H. L. Mencken: A Portrait from Memory'', Angoff releases some fictional venom in ''The Bitter Spring''. Mencken is portrayed as a loud-mouthed vulgarian and an intellectual fraud with but a single saving grace, his love of music..." by the name of "Harry P. Brandt." Regarding his editing of the writings of Nathan, Time wrote, "Mercury associate, Charles Angoff, has reached back over 34 years, dusted off Nathan's personal Five-Foot Shelf of writings (some 39 books) and pieced together a Nathan sampler. Sipped, ''The World of George Jean Nathan'' is a delight; swallowed, it leaves a faintly rusty taste on the palate, like water too long in the taps. With malice toward some, Nathan has his say on every subject under his sun." The following books appear in the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

Books

* ''American Spectator'' * ''Real Aims of Catholicism'' (1928) * ''Literary History of the American People'' (1931) * ''World Over In...'' (1938) * ''Palestrina, Savior of Church Music'', illustrated by William Brady (1944) * ''Adventures in Heaven'' (1945, 1970) * ''Handbook of Libel: A Practical Guide for Editors and Authors'' (1946, 1966) * ''Fathers of Classical Music'', illustrated by La Verne Reiss (1947, 1969) * ''When I was a Boy in Boston'', illustrated by Samuel Gilbert (1947, 1970) * ''Journey to the Dawn'' (1951) * ''In the Morning Light'' (1953) * ''Sun at Noon'' (1955) * ''H. L. Mencken, A Portrait from Memory'' (1956) * ''Something About My Father, and Other People'' (1956) * ''Between Day and Dark'' (1959) * ''Bitter Spring'' (1961) * ''Summer Storm'' (1963) * ''Tone of the Twenties, and Other Essays'' (1966) * ''Bell of Time: A Book of Poems'', foreword by Joseph Joel Keith (1967) * ''Memoranda for tomorrow; a book of poems'' (1968) * ''Memory of Autumn'' (1968) * ''Stories from the Literary Review'' (1969) * ''Winter Twilight'' (1970) * ''Prayers at Midnight: A Book of Prose Poems'' (1971) * ''Season of mists'' (1971) * ''Mid-Century'' (1973) * ''Emma Lazarus, Poet, Jewish Activist, Pioneer Zionist'' (1979) * ''Toward the Horizon'' (1980)

Edited works

* ''Arsenal for Skeptics'', edited by Richard W. Hinton (pseudonym) (1934) * ''Stradivari, the Violin-Maker'', by Helen Tinyanova (1938) * ''Theatre Book of the Year'', by

(1943) * ''American Mercury Reader: A Selection of Distinguished Articles, Stories, and Poems Published in the American Mercury during the Past Twenty Years'', edited by

Lawrence Spivak Lawrence Edmund Spivak (June 11, 1900 – March 9, 1994) was an American publisher and journalist who was best known as the co-founder, producer and host of the prestigious public affairs program ''Meet the Press''. He and journalist Martha Rount ...

and Charles Angoff (1944, 1979) * ''Five Minute Classics'', by Julius Washington (1945) * ''Modern Stories from Many Lands: he Literary Review Book', selected and edited by Clarence R. Decker ndCharles Angoff (1963, 1972) * ''Humanities in the Age of Science: In Honor of Peter Sammartino'', edited by Charles Angoff (1968) * ''African Writing Today: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Zambia'', selected and edited by Charles Angoff ndJohn Povey (1969) * ''

George Sterling George Sterling (December 1, 1869 – November 17, 1926) was an American writer based in the San Francisco, California Bay Area and Carmel-by-the-Sea. He was considered a prominent poet and playwright and proponent of Bohemianism during the fi ...

: A Centenary Memoir-Anthology'', edited by Charles Angoff (1969) * ''Rise of American Jewish literature: An Anthology of Selections from the Major Novels'', edited by Charles Angoff and Meyer Levin (1970) * ''Diamond Anthology'', edited by Charles Angoff nd others foreword by Charles Angoff (1971) * ''Papers and Discussions by Conrad Cherry nd Others', edited by Charles Angoff (1974) * ''

William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet, writer, and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism. In addition to his writing, Williams had a long career as a physician practicing both pedia ...

: Papers by

Kenneth Burke Kenneth Duva Burke (May 5, 1897 – November 19, 1993) was an American literary theorist, as well as poet, essayist, and novelist, who wrote on 20th-century philosophy, aesthetics, criticism, and rhetorical theory. As a literary theorist, Burk ...

nd Others', edited by Charles Angoff (1974) * ''Science and the Human Imagination:

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

: Papers and Discussions'', by Jeremy Bernstein and Gerald Feinberg (1978) * ''Biology and the Future of Man: Papers, by Nathan Hershey, Merril Eisenbud'', edited by Charles Angoff (1978) * ''World of George Jean Nathan: Essays, Reviews & Commentary'', edited by Charles S. Angoff ; epilogue by Patricia Angelin (1998)

Books in Angoff's honor

* ''Old Century and the New: Essays in Honor of Charles Angoff'', edited by Alfred Rosa (1978) * ''Man from the Mercury: A Charles Angoff Memorial Reader'', edited, with an introduction by

Thomas Yoseloff __NOTOC__ Alfred Smith Barnes (January 28, 1817 – February 17, 1888) was an American publisher and philanthropist. Early life Barnes was born in New Haven, Connecticut, to Eli Barnes of Southington, Connecticut, a farmer and innkeeper, who fo ...

(1986)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Angoff, Charles Fairleigh Dickinson University faculty American editors American male journalists 20th-century American journalists 1902 births 1979 deaths Harvard College alumni 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States