Joseph Wharton Lippincott


Joseph Wharton Lippincott was a noted publisher, author, naturalist, and sportsman who was the grandson of Joshua Ballinger Lippincott, founder of Philadelphia publisher J.B. Lippincott Company, and of industrialist Joseph Wharton, founder of the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania.

Biography

He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to J. Bertram Lippincott, one of the three children of Joshua Bertram Lippincott, and Joanna Wharton Lippincott, one of the three daughters of Joseph Wharton. He attended The Episcopal Academy and graduated from the Wharton School in 1908. Following college he joined J.B. Lippincott Company, the family publishing firm he would serve for 50 years, including as President from 1927 until 1948, and then as Chairman of the Board until his retirement in 1958.

Books

Lippincott wrote 17 books about animals and nature, including Wilderness Champion; The Wolf King; The Wahoo Bobcat; Long Horn, Leader of the Deer; Chiseltooth, the Beaver; Persimmon Jim, the Possum; Bun, a Wild Rabbit; Little Red, the Fox; Gray Squirrel; Striped Coat, the Skunk; The Red Roan Pony; Animal Neighbors of the Countryside; and Black Wings, the Unbeatable Crow.

Award for Outstanding Librarianship

In 1938 he founded the Joseph W. Lippincott Award for Outstanding Librarianship, which continues to be awarded by the American Library Association each year. Recipients of the Award have included Mary Utopia Rothrock, Carleton B. Joeckel, Lester Asheim, Peggy Sullivan and Carla Hayden

Family

He married Elizabeth Schuyler Mills in 1913, and the couple had two sons, Joseph Wharton Lippincott, Jr. and R. Schuyler Lippincott, and a daughter, Elizabeth Schuyler Wilkes. His wife died in 1943 and he remarried Virginia Mathieson in 1945.

Fiction

All the books in this series of revised reissues were illustrated by George F. Mason. The original editions, published between 1918 and 1928, had been illustrated with photographs.