{{Short description|American editor (1857–1918)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=December 2020}} {{Infobox person | name = Ripley Hitchcock | image = James Ripley Hitchcock.png | alt = | caption = | birth_name = James Ripley Wellman Hitchcock | birth_date = {{Birth date|1857|07|03}} | birth_place = Fitchburg, Massachusetts | death_date = {{Death date and age|1918|05|05|1857|07|03}} | death_place = New York, New York | resting_place = | other_names = | occupation = Editor, writer | spouse = {{Plainlist| * {{Marriage|Martha Barker Wolcott|May 23, 1883|1903|end=d.}} * {{Marriage|Helen Sanborn Sargent|January 7, 1914}} }} | children = 2 | awards = | education = | signature = | party = }} '''Ripley Hitchcock''' (born '''James Ripley Wellman Hitchcock'''; 1857–1918) was a prominent American editor. He edited the works of Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, Zane Grey, Joel Chandler Harris, Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser.<ref name="A Stephen Crane Encyclopedia">{{cite book|last=Wertheim|first=Stanley|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-uzry987mP4C&pg=PA155|title=A Stephen Crane Encyclopedia|year=1997|location=Westport, CT|publisher=Greenwood Press|page=155|isbn=9780313296925}}</ref>
==Biography== Ripley Hitchcock was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts on July 3, 1857.<ref name="A Stephen Crane Encyclopedia"/><ref name=Cyclopaedia>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vPEpAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA166-IA19 |title=The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography |volume=XVIII |publisher=James T. White & Company |pages=173–174 |year=1922 |access-date=2020-12-28 |via=Google Books}}</ref> His father was surgeon Alfred Hitchcock (1813-1874). He graduated from Harvard University in 1877. After his graduation, he was a special student at Harvard in fine arts and philosophy. He attended lectures at the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons for one year.<ref name=acab>{{Appletons|wstitle=Hitchcock, Alfred|year=1892|inline=1}}</ref>
He started work as a journalist for ''The New York Tribune'' in 1882. In 1890, he became literary adviser for D. Appleton & Company, in which capacity he edited Edward Noyes Westcott's narrative ''David Harum'' (1898) into a bestseller, later made into a film. From 1902 to 1906, he worked for A. S. Barnes as vice president. From 1906 onwards, he worked as an editor for Harper and Brothers.<ref name="A Stephen Crane Encyclopedia"/> He unfanged Stephen Crane's lewd details and Theodore Dreiser's irony.<ref>Lingeman, Richard . "The Biographical Significance of ''Jennie Gerhardt''". ''Dreiser's Jennie Gerhardt: New Essays on the Restored Text''. Ed. James L. W., III West. University of Pennsylvania Press: 1996, pages 11–13</ref>
He also wrote books on art and the history of the West and was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the Century Association and the Authors Club.<ref name="A Stephen Crane Encyclopedia"/>
He married Martha Barker Wolcott on May 23, 1883. She died in 1903, and he remarried to Helen Sanborn Sargent on January 7, 1914. They had two sons.<ref name=Cyclopaedia/>
Ripley Hitchcock died at the Park Avenue Hotel in Manhattan on May 5, 1918.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/66231630/ripley-hitchcock-dead/ |title=Ripley Hitchcock Dead |newspaper=Brooklyn Eagle |page=14 |date=1918-05-06 |access-date=2020-12-28 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>
==Bibliography== {{wikisource|works=or}} *''The Western Art Movement'' (New York, 1885) *''A Study of George Jenness'', with a catalogue of the Jenness exhibition (1885) *''Etching in America'' (1886) *''Madonnas by old masters'' (1888) *''Some American painters in water colors: Fac-similes of new works by William D. Smedley ... [et al.]; with portraits of the artists and representations of their work in black-and-white'' (1890) *''Thomas De Quincey: A study'' (1899) *''Louisiana Purchases Explorations Early History Building Of West'' (1903) *''Richard Henry Stoddard: Some personal notes'' (1903) *''The Lewis and Clark Expedition'' (1905)
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * [https://findingaids.library.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-rb/ldpd_4078900 Finding aid to Ripley Hitchcock papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hitchcock, Ripley}} Category:1857 births Category:1918 deaths Category:Harvard University alumni Category:American editors Category:People from Fitchburg, Massachusetts Category:New York College of Physicians and Surgeons alumni