page_title: Alice Dalgliesh
section_title: Publishing
hierarchical_section_title: Alice Dalgliesh / Publishing
caption_attribution_description: 155 Fifth Avenue, between 21st and 22nd Streets, in the Flatiron District of Manhattan, New York City, was originally built in 1893-1894 for Charles Scribner's Sons, the book publisher. It was designed by Ernest Flagg, who was a Scribner relative. For 30 years, until 2007, the building was the headquarters of United Synangogue of America, which sold it for $26.5 million. The buyer then re-sold it six months later for $38 million. The building has been a designated NYC landmark since 1976, and is located within the Ladies Miles Historic District. (Sources: AIA Guide to NYC (4th ed.), New York City Landmarks (4th ed.) and [1])
context_page_description: Alice Dalgliesh was a naturalized American author and publisher who wrote more than 40 fiction and non-fiction books, mainly for children. She has been called "a pioneer in the field of children's historical fiction". Three of her books were runners-up for the annual Newbery Medal, the partly autobiographical The Silver Pencil, The Bears on Hemlock Mountain, and The Courage of Sarah Noble, which was also named to the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award list.
  As the founding editor of Scribner's and Sons Children's Book Division, Dalgliesh published works by award-winning authors and illustrators including Robert A. Heinlein, Marcia Brown, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Katherine Milhous, Will James, Leonard Weisgard, and Leo Politi. Her prominence in the field of children's literature led to her being appointed the first president of the Children's Book Council, a national nonprofit trade association of children's book publishers and presses.
context_section_description: Under her leadership the Children's Department at Scribners published many distinguished authors and illustrators like N.C. Wyeth, Genevieve Foster and Alfred Morgan. She produced award-winning non-fiction, including several ground-breaking science and biography series. Her fiction sometimes pushed the boundaries, as in 1952's Two and the Town by Henry Felsen, in which a young girl becomes pregnant and the couple is then forced to marry.
  Dalgliesh also developed juvenile science fiction, and was Robert A. Heinlein's editor for many of his books, from Red Planet, (1949), to Have Space Suit—Will Travel (1959).  At one point she commented that she wished she had a girl's writer who could turn out a book a year, as Heinlein did for boys. Taking her idea to heart, he wrote the short story "Poor Daddy", with a teenage girl for the protagonist. One of Heinlein's juveniles that she edited eventually won a Retro-Hugo Award for Best Novel - Farmer in the Sky.
  Francis Felsen, who worked under Dalgliesh as an editor, said she "knew clearly what she liked and didn't like and stood behind it." But she also "let authors write in their own voice, had insights into writers, and a respect for history". Charles Scribner, Jr., came into the business while she was there, and said this of her: "She was a professional through and through. Indeed, she gave me my real education in publishing as a business, as a set of obligations, and as a career requiring the highest standards. She felt she had a calling to be a children's book editor and that her books had to be of the highest possible quality."
  Once World War II ended, schools around the U. S. began a major push to increase their libraries. According to Scribner Jr. again, "Alice's list was aimed directly at this very profitable market. All the people involved -- the editors, the artists, the reviewers, the teachers, the school librarians -- shared a common resolve to give American youngsters the very best literature that could be got." Given the number of award-winning books she published, it appears the industry felt she was successful. Children's literature authority Leonard S. Marcus says in Minders of Make-Believe, "her department quietly captured the industry's respect and more than a few of its accolades." Besides the Hugo award, Dalgliesh published at least eleven Newbery Honor books, three Caldecott Medal books and ten Caldecott Honor books, (including her own). Dalgleish has been "credited with advancing the place of children's literature in the publishing world".
caption: Scribner's Publishing Building, NY
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