Laughlin, James

Laughlin, James

(born Oct. 30, 1914, Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S.—died Nov. 12, 1997, Norfolk, Conn.) U.S. publisher and poet. Born to a wealthy family, Laughlin founded New Directions press in 1936 after graduating from Harvard. He established the company initially to publish ignored yet influential writers, including William Carlos Williams and Ezra Pound, a friend and major influence on his life and work. New Directions editions of such authors as Dylan Thomas, Tennessee Williams, and Hermann Hesse (one of the many foreign authors it published in translation) eventually made the house, despite its small size, one of the most distinguished literary publishers in the U.S. Its inexpensive pocket-sized volumes had distinctive black-and-white covers that made them recognizable in any bookstore.

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Laughlin, James (1914–  ) publisher; born in Pittsburgh, Pa. Drawing on his family's fortune (from the Jones and Laughlin Steel Co.), in 1936 he founded New Directions Press, which specializes in publishing quality literary works deemed unlikely to gain a mass audience; Dylan Thomas and Ezra Pound were among its authors.