{{Short description|American writer, biographer, editor, and publisher (1949–2019)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=July 2025}} '''James Robert Atlas''' (March 22, 1949 – September 4, 2019) was an American writer, biographer, editor, and publisher.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/books/james-atlas-dead.html|title=James Atlas, an Ambassador for Biographies, Dies at 70|last=Genzlinger|first=Neil|date=September 5, 2019|work=The New York Times|access-date=October 5, 2019|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> He was the president of Atlas & Company and founding editor of the Penguin Lives Series.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://atlasandco.com/about-us/|title=About Us {{!}} Atlas And Co|language=en-US|access-date=October 5, 2019|archive-date=June 30, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150630044903/http://atlasandco.com/about-us|url-status=dead}}</ref>
== Early life and education == Atlas was born in Evanston, Illinois, to Donald and Nora (Glassenberg) Atlas. His father was a physician and his mother was a homemaker. Atlas graduated in 1967 from high school in Evanston, during the turmoil of the 1960s.<ref name=":0" />
He studied at Harvard under Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop with the intention of becoming a poet. He went to Oxford and studied under the biographer Richard Ellmann, as a Rhodes Scholar. During his time at Oxford he was inspired to become a biographer.<ref name=":0" />
== Career == Atlas was a contributor to ''The New Yorker'', and he was an editor at ''The New York Times Magazine'' for many years.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/14935/James_Atlas/index.aspx|title=author-details|author=World Archipelago|work=harpercollins.com|access-date=March 24, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140331015510/http://harpercollins.com/authors/14935/James_Atlas/index.aspx|archive-date=March 31, 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref> He edited volumes of poetry and wrote several novels and two biographies. In 2002, he started Atlas Books, which at one time published two series in conjunction with HarperCollins and W. W. Norton. In 2007, the company was renamed Atlas & Company, to coincide with the launch of its new list. Atlas joined Amazon Publishing and Atlas & Company stopped publishing new titles in 2012.<ref>{{Cite web| title = James Atlas Joins Amazon Publishing; Atlas & Co. Stops Releasing New Titles| work = PublishersWeekly.com| access-date = July 17, 2020| url = https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/50906-james-atlas-joins-amazon-publishing-atlas-co-stops-releasing-new-titles.html}}</ref>
Atlas's work appeared in ''The New York Times Book Review'',<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nybooks.com/authors/2103|title=James Atlas - The New York Review of Books|work=nybooks.com|access-date=March 24, 2015}}</ref> ''The New York Review of Books'', the ''London Review of Books'', ''Vanity Fair'', ''Harper's Magazine'',<ref>{{cite web|url=http://harpers.org/subjects/JamesAtlas|title=James Atlas|work=harpers.org|access-date=March 24, 2015}}</ref> ''New York'' magazine,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/bizfinance/biz/features/11081/|title=Learning to Live with Failure in New York City|work=NYMag.com|date=February 11, 2005 |access-date=March 24, 2015}}</ref> and ''The Huffington Post''.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-atlas | work=Huffington Post | first=James | last=Atlas | title=James Atlas}}</ref>
== Personal life and death == In 1975 he married psychiatrist Dr. Anna Fels.<ref name=":0" /> Atlas died in Manhattan, New York on September 4, 2019, from complications of a lung condition.<ref name=":0"/> He was survived by his wife and a son, daughter, and grandson.<ref name=":0" />
==Works== *''Ten American Poets: An Anthology of Poems'', Cheadle: Carcanet Press, 1973 *''Delmore Schwartz: The Life of an American Poet'', New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1977 (nominated for the National Book Award) *The Great Pretender (fiction), New York: Atheneum, 1986. *''Battle of the Books: The Curriculum Debate in America'', New York: W.W. Norton, 1993 *''Bellow: A Biography'', New York: Random House and London: Faber, 2000 (He is also the editor of Saul Bellow's collection of novels in Library of America) *''My Life in the Middle Ages: A Survivor's Tale'', New York: HarperCollins, 2005 (An adaptation of a series of articles he did for ''The New Yorker'', and ''The Great Pretender,'' a semi-autobiographical novel about coming of age in the 1960s. He is a longtime board member of the ''Harvard Advocate'', which has previously published his work). *{{cite book|title=How They See Us: Meditations on America|year=2009|publisher=Atlas|isbn=978-1-934633-10-6|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781934633106}}, (editor) regarding some global views of America. *''The Shadow in the Garden: A Biographer's Tale'', New York: Pantheon Books, 2017
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20081018055447/http://www.observer.com/2008/media/baby-it-s-going-be-cold-outside-book-publishing New York Observer article mentions Atlas's postponement of spring 2009 list] * [http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6437722.html/ Publishers Weekly article, "Atlas Books Starts New Line,"] * [http://www.atlasandco.com/ Atlas & Co.] * {{C-SPAN|38870}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Atlas, James}} Category:1949 births Category:2019 deaths Category:American Rhodes Scholars Category:American book publishers (people) Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Evanston Township High School alumni Category:21st-century American male writers Category:21st-century American biographers Category:Writers from Evanston, Illinois Category:The New Yorker people Category:20th-century American biographers Category:20th-century American journalists Category:20th-century American male journalists Category:20th-century American male writers Category:American male non-fiction writers