Robert Gottlieb, the author and editor who worked on books by authors including Joseph Heller, Toni Morrison, and Robert A. Caro, has died at 92.
Gottlieb’s death was announced in a news release from Alfred A. Knopf, the publisher where he worked for years.
Gottlieb, a New York native, was educated at Columbia University and the University of Cambridge. He began his career in publishing in 1955 at Simon & Schuster, starting as an assistant and eventually becoming editor-in-chief.
He moved to Knopf in 1968 and stayed there for nearly two decades before becoming the editor of the New Yorker in 1987. After five years at the magazine, he returned to Knopf.
The list of authors he edited over his decades in publishing reads like a who’s who of literary stars: John Cheever, Salman Rushdie, John le Carré, Nora Ephron, Barbara Tuchman, and more.
Perhaps the author he was most associated with is Caro, author of The Power Broker and the biography series The Years of Lyndon Johnson. The two were longtime friends; last year, Gottlieb’s daughter, Lizzie Gottlieb, released Turn Every Page, a documentary about the pair.
Gottlieb was himself an author of several nonfiction books, including George Balanchine, Avid Reader, and Garbo.
In a statement, Caro paid tribute to his friend, saying, “People talk to me about some of the triumphant moments Bob and I shared, but today I remember other moments, tough ones, and I remember how Bob was always, always, for half a century, there for me. He was a great friend, and today I mourn my friend with all my heart.”
Others remembered Gottlieb on social media. Slate columnist Laura Miller wrote on Twitter, “A genius editor, the most avid reader I've ever met, and a lovely friend. We won't see his like again.”
And writer Mark Harris tweeted, “Who would even dare aspire to this Everest of a life and career? RIP.”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
