Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Knox Burger, R. I. P.

Knox Burger, 87, Book Editor and Literary Agent - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com: "As a magazine editor in the 1950s, Knox Burger published Kurt Vonnegut’s first short story. As a book editor in the 1960s, he asked John D. MacDonald to create a mystery series around a character who eventually turned out to be the detective Travis McGee. And as a literary agent in the 1970s, he took on a novel about a Russian detective by a largely unknown writer — “Gorky Park,” by Martin Cruz Smith — which in 1980 he sold to Random House for $1 million."

I just learned of this from Sarah Weinman's blog. One the giants of the paperback original days (both Dell and Gold Medal) is gone.

7 comments:

Richard Robinson said...

Now here's a man I'd love to read a biography of!

Dan said...

I'll second that, Rich!

Pericles said...

I agree. Think of all the fascinating stories Burger could tell.

Todd Mason said...

Jeez louise. I raised Burger in "coversation" on this blog the other day, and a colleague brought up Pendergrass the same night. That's a bad sort of coincidence.

Juri said...

The Todd Mason Curse!

Another coincidence: I'm just editing an article on Fawcett Gold Medals on a forth-coming issue of my fanzine, Pulp, and Burger gets mentioned. Any photo of him around on-line?

Unknown said...

I've never seen a photo on-line, Juri, and I don't have one.

Todd Mason said...

There's a phot of Burger at the link in this post, accompanying the NYT obit.