15 July 2013
Mr. Knopf - or rather his ghostly avatar, the actual publisher having sold his namesake firm to Random House in 1960, died in 1984 and rolled over many times since - was celebrating the largest book-publishing merger in history.
The merger, announced last October and completed on July 1 after regulatory approval, shrinks the Big Six, which publish about two-thirds of books in the United States, down to the Big Five. HarperCollins has reportedly been flirting with Simon & Schuster, which would take it down to four. (The others are Hachette and Macmillan.)