Edgar L Doctorow

Edgar Lawrence Doctorow was born in the Bronx on Jan. 6, 1931. His grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Russia. His father, David, had a store that sold musical instruments in the old Hippodrome building in Midtown Manhattan; his mother, Rose, played the piano. Mr. Doctorow studied with the poet and critic John Crowe Ransom at Kenyon College in Ohio, where he earned a bachelor’s degree, then spent a year in the graduate program in drama at Columbia, where he met his wife, Helen Setzer, then an aspiring actress. In the late 1950s, he had started as an editor at New American Library and within a few years had moved to Dial Press, where he was editor in chief, working with Norman Mailer, James Baldwin and others. Toward the end of his tenure he was the publisher, as well. Soft-spoken, wry, and a bit professorial in demeanor — he taught at Sarah Lawrence College and New York University, among other places. In addition to his wife and son Richard, Mr. Doctorow is survived by two daughters, Jenny Doctorow Fe-Bornstein and Caroline Doctorow Gatewood, and four grandchildren.