Kurt Wolff (3 March 1887 – 21 October 1963) was a German publisher, editor, writer, andjournalist.
Wolff was born inBonn,Rhenish Prussia; his mother came from aJewish-German family.[1] He married Elisabeth Karoline ClaraMerck (1890–1970), of theDarmstadt pharmaceuticals firm, in 1909. Together withErnst Rowohlt, Wolff began to work in publishing inLeipzig in 1908. He was the first to promote and publishFranz Kafka andFranz Werfel but declined to publish the works ofAxel Munthe. Wolff's close contact with other writers inPrague and his support for unknown, but talented, writers helped him to further the careers of Kafka's friends,Max Brod andFelix Weltsch, who were better known inBerlin andGermany.
In 1929, Wolff published the photography bookFace of Our Time byAugust Sander.
In 1941 Wolff and his second wife,Helen Mosel, left Germany and emigrated to Paris, London, Montagnola, St. Tropez, Nice, and finally with the assistance ofVarian Fry, toNew York City.[2] Later inMunich,Florence, and theUnited States, Wolff developed several publishing houses. In the U.S., he and Helen foundedPantheon Books in 1942, which became well known.[3][4] They later ran the Helen and Kurt Wolff Books imprint atHarcourt Brace Jovanovich.[5] Wolff settled in Switzerland in the 1950s.[6] He died after a driving accident and is buried with Helen inMarbach, Germany.
TheHelen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize is named in honor of him and his wife.His son,Christian Wolff, is a renowned avant-garde musician. His grandson Alexander (son of Nicholas) wrote a family history, published in 2021 asEndpapers: A Family Story of Books, War, Escape, and Home.
TheBeinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library atYale University holds the Kurt Wolff Archive, 1907–38. The collection contains about 4,100 letters and manuscripts from the files of the Kurt Wolff Verlag from the years 1910–30. A portion of the Kurt Wolff Archive is currently available online.[7]
