Bennett Cerf

Bennett Cerf was the most important American trade publisher of the twentieth century and one of the most beloved public figures of the early television age. As the co-founder and president of Random House, he built a publishing house that defined American literary culture for five decades — acquiring and championing authors from William Faulkner to Dr. Seuss, publishing James Joyce’s Ulysses in the landmark censorship case that opened the door for literary modernism in America, and creating a firm whose editorial taste, commercial instincts, and sheer vitality set the standard for American publishing. Simultaneously, as a panellist on the CBS television show What’s My Line? for seventeen years (1951–1967), he became one of the most recognisable personalities in the country — a witty, genial raconteur whose fondness for terrible puns and elaborate shaggy-dog stories made him a national institution.

Random House

Cerf was born in New York City in 1898 to a prosperous family. He attended Columbia University, where he earned both a BA and a degree from the School of Journalism, and went to work for the publisher Horace Liveright — one of the great risk-taking publishers of the 1920s, who had published Faulkner, Hemingway, O’Neill, and Dreiser. When Liveright’s firm began to collapse under the weight of his theatrical speculations, Cerf and his Columbia classmate Donald Klopfer purchased the Modern Library imprint from Liveright in 1925 for $200,000.

The Modern Library — a series of inexpensive reprints of classic works — was the foundation of everything that followed. In 1927, Cerf and Klopfer decided to publish new books in addition to reprints, and they needed a name for the new imprint. Cerf said they would publish “a few books on the side, at random” — and Random House was born.

The name was perfect. Random House did publish at random, in the best sense — following editorial enthusiasm rather than a programme, acquiring whatever seemed excellent regardless of genre or marketability. Cerf’s genius as a publisher was not editorial (he freely admitted that Klopfer and their editors had better literary judgment) but entrepreneurial: he understood how to build a publishing house as a cultural institution, how to attract and retain great authors, and how to bring serious literature to a mass audience.

The Ulysses Case

The most consequential act of Cerf’s publishing career was his decision, in 1932, to import and publish James Joyce’s Ulysses — a book that had been banned in the United States since 1921 as obscene. Cerf arranged for a copy to be seized by U.S. Customs, then retained Morris Ernst to fight the case. In United States v. One Book Called Ulysses (1933), Judge John M. Woolsey ruled that Ulysses was not pornographic and could be published in America. The decision — one of the most important censorship cases in American legal history — opened the door for the publication of literary modernism in the United States and established the principle that a work’s literary merit was relevant to obscenity determinations.

Building the List

Under Cerf’s leadership, Random House became the publisher of an extraordinary roster of American writers. He published Faulkner from 1936 until Faulkner’s death in 1962 — a relationship of great editorial patience, as Faulkner’s books sold poorly for years before his Nobel Prize in 1950. He acquired Truman Capote, John O’Hara, James Michener, and Irwin Shaw. He published O’Neill’s plays. He created the Beginner Books division, which became the home of Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel), whose The Cat in the Hat (1957) and its successors became the most successful children’s books in American publishing history.

In 1961, Random House went public — the first major American publisher to do so. In 1965, Cerf sold the company to RCA, beginning the process of corporate consolidation that would transform American publishing.

What’s My Line? and the Joke Books

Cerf’s television career made him a public figure in a way that no publisher had been before or has been since. As a panellist on What’s My Line? (1951–1967), he appeared on national television every Sunday evening for seventeen years, becoming famous for his puns, his jokes, and his infectious good humour. The show made publishing seem glamorous and accessible.

His joke anthologies — Try and Stop Me (1944), Shake Well Before Using (1948), Good for a Laugh (1952), The Life of the Party (1956), Laughing Stock (1963) — were enormous bestsellers. His children’s riddle books, beginning with Bennett Cerf’s Book of Riddles (1960), sold millions. These books were often dismissed by literary critics, but they served a real purpose: they made Cerf the public face of American publishing and kept the idea of reading as pleasure alive in the television age.

At Random

At Random (1977, published posthumously from tapes and notes) was Cerf’s memoir — a warm, anecdotal, and invaluable account of American publishing from the 1920s through the 1960s, full of stories about Faulkner, O’Neill, Capote, and the business of books. It remains one of the essential texts for anyone interested in the history of American publishing.

Collecting Cerf

Cerf is collected primarily as a publishing figure — association copies, correspondence, and documents relating to Random House’s editorial history. At Random (Random House, 1977) is the most collected book bearing his name. The joke anthologies, while common, are collected as a set. Bennett Cerf’s Book of Riddles (Random House, 1960, Beginner Books) is collected as a companion to the Dr. Seuss titles. Random House first editions of major authors (Faulkner, O’Neill, Capote) bearing the Cerf/Klopfer colophon are collected as artefacts of the house Cerf built.