An heir to the Guggenheim fortune, Straus decided to put his money where other people’s mouths were: he co-founded a book publishing company, Farrar, Straus & Giroux. His goal for the company was to emphasize literary quality over profit, but found that the former very often led to the latter.
He attracted some of the greatest writers of his time, names like T.S. Eliot, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. “Many people have accused me of being an elitist,” Straus once said. “I’m guilty. I am an elitist. I like good books.” During his 50 years at the company’s helm, books often won awards, including Pulitzers and National Book Awards. Straus died May 25 in New York from pneumonia. He was 87.