Lives and Letters

The product of a lifetime immersed in the literary, performing arts, and entertainment worlds, Robert Gottlieb's
Lives and Letters spotlights the work, careers, intimate lives, and lasting achievements of a vast array of celebrated writers and performers in film, theater, and dance, and some of the more curious iconic public figures of our times.

From the world of literature, Charles Dickens, James Thurber, Judith Krantz, John Steinbeck, and Rudyard Kipling; the controversies surrounding Bruno Bettelheim and Elia Kazan; and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and her editor, Maxwell Perkins.

From dance and theater, Isadora Duncan and Margot Fonteyn, Serge Diaghilev and George Balanchine, Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse.

In Hollywood, Bing Crosby and Judy Garland, Douglas Fairbanks and Lillian Gish, Tallulah Bankhead and Katharine Hepburn, Mae West and Anna May Wong.

In New York, Diana Vreeland, the Trumps, and Gottlieb's own take on the contretemps that followed his replacing William Shawn at The New Yorker.

And so much more . . .


About the Author
Robert Gottlieb (1931 - 2023) was a legendary book editor and writer who shaped the modern literary canon. He was editor-in-chief of Simon and Schuster, the head of Alfred A. Knopf, and editor of The New Yorker. He contributed frequently to The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, and The New York Review of Books, and the New York Observer as dance critic. His books include Great Expectations: The Sons and Daughters of Charles Dickens, George Balanchine: The Ballet Maker, Sarah: The Life of Sarah Bernhardt, Avid Reader: A Life, and a collection of essays Near-Death Experiences . . . and Others. In 2015, he was presented with the Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. A documentary film exploring his fifty-year relationship with the writer Robert Caro, Turn Every Page, was released in 202