Bennett Cerf Biography

Fast Facts

• Donated the Random House archives to his alma mater, Columbia University, in 1969
• Graduated from Columbia University in 1919, where he wrote for the "Spectator" and was the editor for the "Jester․"
• Worked as a stockbroker for a few years before joining the publisher Boni & Liveright in 1923
• Quote: "There have been too many [books] in which some young man is looking forward, backward or sideways in anger․ Or in which some Southern youth is being chased through the magnolia bushes by his aunt․"
• Best known as one of the founders of the publishing firm Random House and as a panelist on "What's My Line?"
• Had one of the publishing industry's earliest and most successful mergers when he bought Alfred A․ Knopf's publishing house in 1960
• Gained popularity for publishing the humor compilation "Book of Riddles․"
• Launched Random House in 1927 with Donald Klopfer with the idea of just publishing "a few books on the side at random" and remained president of the company until 1965
• Published James Joyce's "Ulysses" in 1934 in defiance of a ban that had been placed on the book