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| Judith Jones, Editor of Literature and Culinary Delight, Dies at 93 | Judith Jones, Editor of Literature and Culinary Delight, Dies at 93 |
| (about 7 hours later) | |
| Judith Jones, the editor who discovered Julia Child and advanced a generation of culinary writers that revolutionized cooking and tastes in American homes, and who for a half-century edited John Updike, Anne Tyler, John Hersey and other literary lions, died on Wednesday at her summer home in Walden, Vt. She was 93. | Judith Jones, the editor who discovered Julia Child and advanced a generation of culinary writers that revolutionized cooking and tastes in American homes, and who for a half-century edited John Updike, Anne Tyler, John Hersey and other literary lions, died on Wednesday at her summer home in Walden, Vt. She was 93. |
| The cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease, her stepdaughter Bronwyn Dunne said. | The cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease, her stepdaughter Bronwyn Dunne said. |
| Authors and publishing colleagues called Ms. Jones an extraordinary editor — imaginative, versatile, fascinated with stories, curious about people and places, a deft wordsmith and above all insatiable for the pleasures of French cooking. She talked about it, wrote about it and practiced its arts in her kitchens in Manhattan and rural Vermont. | Authors and publishing colleagues called Ms. Jones an extraordinary editor — imaginative, versatile, fascinated with stories, curious about people and places, a deft wordsmith and above all insatiable for the pleasures of French cooking. She talked about it, wrote about it and practiced its arts in her kitchens in Manhattan and rural Vermont. |
| She modestly ascribed her success to being in the right place at the right time. Certainly that was true in 1950, when as a young editorial assistant at Doubleday in Paris she rescued the diary of Anne Frank from a pile of rejects and persuaded her superiors to publish it in the United States — a stroke of fortune that gave the English-speaking world the intimate portrait of a forgotten girl, the child everyone had lost in World War II. | She modestly ascribed her success to being in the right place at the right time. Certainly that was true in 1950, when as a young editorial assistant at Doubleday in Paris she rescued the diary of Anne Frank from a pile of rejects and persuaded her superiors to publish it in the United States — a stroke of fortune that gave the English-speaking world the intimate portrait of a forgotten girl, the child everyone had lost in World War II. |
| And Ms. Jones was again in the right place at the right time a decade later when a shopworn 800-page manuscript by three unknown women with no literary credentials landed on her desk at the Alfred A. Knopf publishing house in New York. The book, too long and with the uninspired title “French Recipes for American Cooks,” had been rejected by several other publishers. | And Ms. Jones was again in the right place at the right time a decade later when a shopworn 800-page manuscript by three unknown women with no literary credentials landed on her desk at the Alfred A. Knopf publishing house in New York. The book, too long and with the uninspired title “French Recipes for American Cooks,” had been rejected by several other publishers. |
| Ms. Jones, who knew a great deal about French cooking from her years in Paris, began reading the manuscript and was so enthralled, she could not put it down. She took it home and tried some of the recipes, which proved to be magnificent. It was a lucid, approachable cookbook that took the mystery out of coq au vin and boeuf bourguignon and hundreds of dishes long thought to be too daunting for the American cook. | Ms. Jones, who knew a great deal about French cooking from her years in Paris, began reading the manuscript and was so enthralled, she could not put it down. She took it home and tried some of the recipes, which proved to be magnificent. It was a lucid, approachable cookbook that took the mystery out of coq au vin and boeuf bourguignon and hundreds of dishes long thought to be too daunting for the American cook. |
| “Here was the cookbook I had been dreaming of — one that took you by the hand and explained the whys and wherefores of every step of a recipe,” Ms. Jones recalled in an article she wrote in The New York Times in 2004, a few months after Ms. Child died. “It spelled out techniques, talked about proper equipment, necessary ingredients and viable substitutes; it warned of pitfalls yet provided remedies for your mistakes.” | |
| The book, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” by Ms. Child and two French colleagues, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, was not a blockbuster best seller when it was published in 1961. That did not happen until 48 years later, when, in 2009, the book, often revised but still in print, got a lift from a new movie, “Julie & Julia.” The film combined scenes from Ms. Child’s discovery of cooking in France with the story of a modern blogger cooking her way through the book. (Erin Dilly played Ms. Jones and Meryl Streep played Ms. Child.) | |
| But the book was so popular over decades that it warranted scores of reprintings and a second volume in 1970, and it eventually sold more than a million copies. It gradually shifted the culinary landscape of a nation raised on canned vegetables, cake mixes and back-of-the-box recipes. It also launched the fluty-voiced Ms. Child on a celebrated, long-running public television career as host of “The French Chef.” | |
| For Ms. Jones, who had previously edited translations of the French philosophers Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, the Child book opened a new career path, editing culinary writers: James Beard and Marion Cunningham on American fare, Madhur Jaffrey (Indian food), Claudia Roden (Middle Eastern), Edna Lewis (Southern), Lidia Bastianich and Marcella Hazan (Italian), and many others. Ms. Jones also commissioned and edited regional and ethnic food books for the “Knopf Cooks American” series. | For Ms. Jones, who had previously edited translations of the French philosophers Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, the Child book opened a new career path, editing culinary writers: James Beard and Marion Cunningham on American fare, Madhur Jaffrey (Indian food), Claudia Roden (Middle Eastern), Edna Lewis (Southern), Lidia Bastianich and Marcella Hazan (Italian), and many others. Ms. Jones also commissioned and edited regional and ethnic food books for the “Knopf Cooks American” series. |
| A Knopf vice president, Ms. Jones edited some of America’s best novelists and nonfiction writers. She shepherded all but one of Mr. Updike’s scores of books of fiction, short stories, poetry and essays to publication, and edited Ms. Tyler’s novels on the American family and works by Mr. Hersey, Elizabeth Bowen, Peter Taylor and William Maxwell. | |
| Ms. Jones and her husband, Evan, an American food writer she met in Paris in 1948, wrote three books together, two of them on breads and one on New England cooking. They also collaborated in the kitchen on dinners for friends at their homes on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and at Bryn Teg Farm, in Walden Township in northern Vermont. The film and theater critic Stanley Kauffmann once called their New York apartment “the best restaurant in New York.” | Ms. Jones and her husband, Evan, an American food writer she met in Paris in 1948, wrote three books together, two of them on breads and one on New England cooking. They also collaborated in the kitchen on dinners for friends at their homes on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and at Bryn Teg Farm, in Walden Township in northern Vermont. The film and theater critic Stanley Kauffmann once called their New York apartment “the best restaurant in New York.” |
| After her husband died in 1996, Ms. Jones began cooking for herself and wrote a book about it, “The Pleasures of Cooking for One” (2009). It was a blend of kitchen advice and encouragement for people who live alone in their final years. | After her husband died in 1996, Ms. Jones began cooking for herself and wrote a book about it, “The Pleasures of Cooking for One” (2009). It was a blend of kitchen advice and encouragement for people who live alone in their final years. |
| Like Ms. Jones, many older people faced the prospect of living alone and cooking for one, Julia Moskin wrote in The Times in 2007, adding: “Ms. Jones is an evangelist for the psychic, spiritual, physical and intellectual benefits cooking can bring old people: the math and concentration required for following a recipe, the exercise of kneading bread or whisking eggs, the self-regard that shows in setting a place and sitting down for a meal.” | Like Ms. Jones, many older people faced the prospect of living alone and cooking for one, Julia Moskin wrote in The Times in 2007, adding: “Ms. Jones is an evangelist for the psychic, spiritual, physical and intellectual benefits cooking can bring old people: the math and concentration required for following a recipe, the exercise of kneading bread or whisking eggs, the self-regard that shows in setting a place and sitting down for a meal.” |
| Judith Bailey was born in New York City on March 10, 1924, to Charles Bailey, a lawyer, and the former Phyllis Hedley. Judith and her sister, Susan, grew up in Manhattan in a prosperous but frugal household where garlic was shunned as vulgar. The food shopping was done by telephone and the cooking by a nanny. Evening meals were English-style meat and boiled potatoes. Sometimes, on Saturdays, Judith’s father took her to a French restaurant. | Judith Bailey was born in New York City on March 10, 1924, to Charles Bailey, a lawyer, and the former Phyllis Hedley. Judith and her sister, Susan, grew up in Manhattan in a prosperous but frugal household where garlic was shunned as vulgar. The food shopping was done by telephone and the cooking by a nanny. Evening meals were English-style meat and boiled potatoes. Sometimes, on Saturdays, Judith’s father took her to a French restaurant. |
| Judith attended the Brearley School in Manhattan and Bennington College in Vermont, graduating in 1945 with a degree in English. After three years as an editorial assistant with Doubleday in New York, she moved to Paris. She and her future husband, sharing rooms and a love of French cuisine, scoured the food stalls and markets and turned their apartment into what she called a speakeasy restaurant making a meager living with meals prepared together. | |
| To make ends meet, she took a job in Doubleday’s Paris office, reading manuscripts and advance copies of books in French in search of material for publication. “The Diary of Anne Frank” had already been published in Dutch and German, but not in English. Attracted by the girl’s picture on the cover of the French edition, which had been consigned to the trash, she began reading. Her boss found her in tears late in the day. | To make ends meet, she took a job in Doubleday’s Paris office, reading manuscripts and advance copies of books in French in search of material for publication. “The Diary of Anne Frank” had already been published in Dutch and German, but not in English. Attracted by the girl’s picture on the cover of the French edition, which had been consigned to the trash, she began reading. Her boss found her in tears late in the day. |
| “We have to send this book to New York,” she said. “It’s wonderful.” | |
| In 1952, Doubleday published “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl,” in to wide approbation. | |
| Judith Bailey and Evan Jones were married in Vienna in 1951. He had two daughters by a previous marriage, Bronwyn and Pamela, and the couple had two adopted children, Chris Vandercook and Audrey Vandercook Bierman. | Judith Bailey and Evan Jones were married in Vienna in 1951. He had two daughters by a previous marriage, Bronwyn and Pamela, and the couple had two adopted children, Chris Vandercook and Audrey Vandercook Bierman. |
| Ms. Jones, who joined Knopf in New York in 1957, wrote for Vogue, Saveur and Gourmet magazines. She won many honors, including the James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006, and retired in 2013. | Ms. Jones, who joined Knopf in New York in 1957, wrote for Vogue, Saveur and Gourmet magazines. She won many honors, including the James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006, and retired in 2013. |
| In her 2007 memoir, “The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food” (the French epicure and gastronome Brillat-Savarin wrote of a 10th muse, Gasterea, goddess of the pleasures of taste), Ms. Jones concluded with — what else? — many of her favorite recipes. | In her 2007 memoir, “The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food” (the French epicure and gastronome Brillat-Savarin wrote of a 10th muse, Gasterea, goddess of the pleasures of taste), Ms. Jones concluded with — what else? — many of her favorite recipes. |
| “At the table, one never grows old,” she explained to a discussion group at a bookstore in Washington, quoting an old Italian saying. “Isn’t that enough reason to come home at the end of the day, roll up one’s sleeves, fire up the stove and start smashing the garlic?” | “At the table, one never grows old,” she explained to a discussion group at a bookstore in Washington, quoting an old Italian saying. “Isn’t that enough reason to come home at the end of the day, roll up one’s sleeves, fire up the stove and start smashing the garlic?” |