In the beginning was the simple Borzoi, lean of loin, distinguished of race, enclosed in a simple oval. They ate the corners of closet doors and the asbestos off the furnace.” Knopf said, “and they were very disappointing-dumb as hell, very destructive. Knopf and his first wife chose a wolfhound -the Borzoi-as a trademark during World War and it became a symbol of quality publishing. Knopf got himself a partner by marrying another publishing enthusiast, the former Blanche Wolfe (she died in 1966 he remarried in 1967). Knopf's father provid ed a $5,000 bankroll, and Mr. Knopf had plans for starting a business, he dismissed the young man - and taught him a final lesson by failing to pay 14 weeks' salary. He taught me it was bad to pay bills and bad to.pay royalties.” “I learned how to publish from Doubleday, and how not to publish from my next employer, Mitchell Kennerly. He finally got a job with Doubleday at $8 a week, but dreamed of better pay, especially after he used the company's adding machine to calculate Rudyard Kipling's American royalties - over $100,000 a year. In 1912 he went to England, met a few authors, and decided to take a hand in their future: “I didn't have to earn my living and I thought the woods were full of publishers who'd be glad to have me, which was not the case.” He himself was horn in New York City, and brought up bourgeois. “I don't like the city, and there's no longer any comfortable way of getting into it or out of it.” “I don't miss New York when I'm away from it,” he said. Though he no longer runs the Knopf business (it has been married to Random House, itself bought by RCA), he Conquers his misgivings two or three times a week and leaves his country home in Purchase, N. Knopf a birthday present today the police start issuing summonses to motorists who block intersections. Recently he wrote Mayor Lindsay to suggest fining motorists blocking, an intersection when the light changes. These days he channels into his correspondence his indignation about what remains undone. “For 50 years I've done what I wanted to do and made a pretty good living,” he said. Today he looks almost cherubic-face full, eye indulgent, mustache at ease. Knopf used to be described as piratical of mien, with waxed mustache and gleaming eye. But the Cosmopolitan Club cannot handle quite that many, so he will be victim of a slightly short count. Knopf wanted to invite 80 people to a birthday dinner for her husband tonight - one for each of his years.
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