Covici, Pascal, 1888-1964

Pascal Covici, publisher and editor, was born in Botosani, Romania, in 1888 and immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1896. He attended the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago. In 1915, he married Dorothy Soll. They had one son, Pascal Covici, Jr.

Covici's first publishing venture was undertaken with William McGee. Their first title, published under the Covici-McGee imprint in 1922, was Ben Hecht's 1001 Afternoons in Chicago. In 1925, the Covici-McGee partnership dissolved, and Covici began publishing under his own imprint. Publications included Erasmus's In Praise of Folly, works by Richard Aldington, works by Remy de Gourmont as translated by Aldington, and translations of works by the Marquis de Sade and Joris Karl Huysmans. In 1928, Covici moved to New York to establish a partnership with Donald Friede. The Covici-Friede firm specialized in limited editions. Among their titles were the complete works of François Villon, the Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur play The Front Page, Aldington's Collected Poems, Mrs. Julia Moore's The Sweet Singer of Michigan, Wyndham Lewis's The Childermass (though only the first of the three planned volumes was published, due to poor sales), and Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness. After an indictment for obscenity, sales for Hall's novel doubled.

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