Morris Harris Philipson (June 23, 1926 – November 3, 2011) was an American novelist and book publisher. Philipson was the longest-serving director in the history of the

University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...

, which position he held from 1967 to 2000. Philipson was a native of

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

. He graduated from Cherry Lawn School in Darien, CT (1944) and received his B.A. (1949) and M.A. (1952) from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

. He received a Ph.D. (1959) in philosophy from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. He worked for several New York publishers, including

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 ...

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 ...

Alfred A. Knopf Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers in ...

, and

Basic Books Basic Books is a book publisher founded in 1950 and located in New York, now an imprint of Hachette Book Group. It publishes books in the fields of psychology, philosophy, economics, science, politics, sociology, current affairs, and history. H ...

before coming to the University of Chicago. At the University of Chicago Press, Philipson became known for large-scale scholarly projects such as ''The Lisle Letters'' (a six-volume collection of 16th-century correspondence by

Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle, KG (died 3 March 1542) was an illegitimate son of the English king Edward IV, half-brother-in-law of Henry VII, and an uncle of Henry VIII, at whose court he was a prominent figure and by whom he was appoi ...

), ''The Works of Giuseppe Verdi'', a four-volume translation of the Chinese classic ''The Journey to the West'', and Jean-Paul Sartre's five-volume ''The Family Idiot: Gustave Flaubert, 1821-1857''. At Chicago, Philipson also published trade paperback editions of works by many literary figures beginning with

Isak Dinesen Baroness Karen Christenze von Blixen-Finecke (born Dinesen; 17 April 1885 – 7 September 1962) was a Danish author who wrote works in Danish and English. She is also known under her pen names Isak Dinesen, used in English-speaking countrie ...

, and continuing with

R. K. Narayan Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami (10 October 1906 – 13 May 2001) was an Indian writer known for his work set in the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi. He was a leading author of early Indian literature in English along with Mul ...

Arthur A. Cohen Arthur Allen Cohen (June 25, 1928 – September 30, 1986) was an American scholar, art critic, theologian, publisher, and author. Scholar David M. Stern has written of Cohen: "Though he was best known as a novelist and theologian, he also pursue ...

, Paul Scott,

Thomas Bernhard Nicolaas Thomas Bernhard (; 9 February 1931 – 12 February 1989) was an Austrian novelist, playwright and poet who explored death, social injustice, and human misery in controversial literature that was deeply pessimistic about modern civilizati ...

, and others. Philipson cultivated strong relationships with French and German publishers, resulting in numerous translations published by the University of Chicago Press, including works by

Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed t ...

Paul Ricoeur Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) *Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chris ...

Yves Bonnefoy Yves Jean Bonnefoy (24 June 1923, Tours – 1 July 2016 Paris) was a French poet and art historian. He also published a number of translations, most notably the plays of William Shakespeare which are considered among the best in French. He was pr ...

, and

Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social Anthro ...

. In 1984, Philipson was awarded the Commandeur de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French ministry of culture.Connie Goddard, "University of Chicago Press Celebrates Its Centennial", ''Publishers Weekly'', 25 July 1991, p. 15 In 1982, Philipson became the first director of scholarly press to win

PEN American Center PEN America (formerly PEN American Center), founded in 1922 and headquartered in New York City, is a nonprofit organization that works to defend and celebrate Freedom of speech, free expression in the United States and worldwide through the ad ...

's Publisher Citation. He also received the

Association of American Publishers The Association of American Publishers (AAP) is the national trade association of the American book publishing industry. AAP lobbies for book, journal, and education publishers in the United States. AAP members include most of the major commercia ...

' Curtis Benjamin Award for Creative Publishing shortly before his retirement. Philipson was the author of more than fifty articles and reviews and five novels: ''Bourgeois Anonymous'' (Vanguard, 1965; Schocken, 1983), ''The Wallpaper Fox'' (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1976), ''A Man in Charge'' (Simon & Schuster, 1979), ''Secret Understandings'' (Simon & Schuster, 1983), and ''Somebody Else's Life'' (Harper & Row, 1987). Philipson was married for thirty-three years to Susan Philipson, an editor whom he met when they worked at Knopf, and who died in 1994. They had three children. Philipson died on November 3, 2011, of a heart attack in Chicago.

References

External Links

Morris Philipson papers
at The Newberry {{DEFAULTSORT:Philipson, Morris 1926 births 2011 deaths American publishers (people) American male writers