Morris Philipson

Who was Morris Philipson?

Morris Harris Philipson was an American novelist and book publisher. Philipson was the longest-serving director in the history of the University of Chicago Press, which position he held from 1967 to 2000.

Philipson was a native of New Haven, Connecticut,. He graduated from Cherry Lawn School in Darien, CT and received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Chicago. He received a Ph.D. in philosophy from Columbia University. He worked for several New York publishers, including Random House, Pantheon Books, Alfred A. Knopf, and Basic Books before coming to the University of Chicago.

At the University of Chicago Press, Philipson became known for large-scale scholarly projects such as The Lisle Letters, The Works of Giuseppe Verdi, a four-volume translation of the Chinese classic The Journey to the West, and Jean-Paul Sartre’s five-volume The Family Idiot: Gustave Flaubert, 1821-1857. At Chicago, Philipson also published trade paperback editions of works by many literary figures beginning with Isak Dinesen, and continuing with R. K. Narayan, Arthur A. Cohen, Paul Scott, Thomas Bernhard, and others. Philipson cultivated strong relationships with French and German publishers, resulting in numerous translations published by the University of Chicago Press, including works by Jacques Derrida, Paul Ricoeur, Yves Bonnefoy, and Claude Lévi-Strauss. In 1984, Philipson was awarded the Commandeur de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French ministry of culture.