The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America

Legendary editor Judith Jones, the woman behind some of the most important authors of the 20th century—including Julia Child, Anne Frank, Edna Lewis, John Updike, and Sylvia Plath—finally gets her due in this “surprising, granular, luminous, and path-breaking biography” (Edward Hirsch, author of How to Read a Poem).

At Doubleday’s Paris office in 1949, twenty-five-year-old Judith Jones spent most of her time wading through manuscripts in the slush pile and passing on projects—until one day, ...