Helen Wolff (27 July 1906 – 28 March 1994) was an American editor and publisher.

Early life and education

Helen Mosel was born to a German father and a Hungarian/Austrian mother in Macedonia, then part of the Ottoman Empire, in 1906. The family spoke German, Turkish and Serbian. They spent time living in Üsküb. Wolff attended boarding schools in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

and learned English. She discovered her gift for languages.

Career

In 1927 Wolff worked in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

where she went from trainee to being in charge of art books for Kurt Wolff Press. The Pantheon imprint where she worked was sold to a Parisian company, and Wolff went there as part of the deal. The Nazis closed the publishing house and the family fled to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

via Italy and France. They arrived in New York in 1941 almost penniless. They founded a new imprint of

Pantheon Books Pantheon Books is an American book publishing imprint with editorial independence. It is part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.Random House, Inc. Datamonitor Company Profiles Authority: Retrieved 6/20/2007, from EBSCO Host Business Source ...

in 1942. In 1959 Wolff moved to

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with her husband. The Pantheon line became an imprint of

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

and in 1961 they established the ''A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book'' imprint at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Wolff had an advantage when selecting books from Europe, she could attend the Frankfurt book fair and read the book in German, French, Italian or Turkish, getting an advantage over other publishers. Kurt Wolff was killed in a traffic accident on his way to a meeting in 1963. Wolff continued running the imprint until she retired in 1986. The imprint continued after she left. Wolff was awarded the Inter Nationes Award for Literature and the Arts by the West German Government in 1981 as well as the Goethe Medal in 1985. Wolff died in

Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

in 1994. They published a number of notable works including

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's ''

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'',

Georges Simenon Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (; 13 February 1903 – 4 September 1989) was a Belgian writer. He published nearly 500 novels and numerous short works, and was the creator of the fictional detective Jules Maigret. Early life and education ...

Umberto Eco Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel ''The Name of the ...

's ''

The Name of the Rose ''The Name of the Rose'' ( it, Il nome della rosa ) is the 1980 debut novel by Italian author Umberto Eco. It is a historical murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327, and an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, ...

'',

Italo Calvino Italo Calvino (, also , ;. RAI (circa 1970), retrieved 25 October 2012. 15 October 1923 – 19 September 1985) was an Italian writer and journalist. His best known works include the ''Our Ancestors'' trilogy (1952–1959), the '' Cosmicomi ...

's ''Invisible Cities,'' and

Anne Morrow Lindbergh Anne Spencer Morrow Lindbergh (June 22, 1906 – February 7, 2001) was an American writer and aviator. She was the wife of decorated pioneer aviator Charles Lindbergh, with whom she made many exploratory flights. Raised in Englewood, New Jers ...

's ''Gift From the Sea''. Wolff never published any of her own work. She wrote, but believed a publisher shouldn't publish. However, after her death, her novel ''Hintergrund für Liebe'' was published in 2020.

Personal life

In 1933, she married Kurt Wolff in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and their son, composer Christian Wolff, was born in 1934 in Nice. Kurt Wolff had two previous children from his first marriage.

Sources

1906 births 1994 deaths Publishers (people) German emigrants to the United States {{Publisher-stub