Nick Lyons was born on June 5, 1932 in New York, New York. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, Bard College, and the University of Michigan, from which he earned a doctorate in 1963. Lyons married in 1957 to artist Mari Blumenau and the couple had four children; Paul, Charles, Jennifer, and Anthony (Tony). Lyons academic career began at the University of Michigan where he taught English prior to accepting a position at the Hunter College of the City University of New York in 1961. He remained on the faculty of CUNY until 1988. He also worked as the executive editor of Crown Publishers from 1964-1974. An avid fisherman, Lyons found a way to combine his avocation and profession in 1977 when he created his first publishing company, Nick Lyons Books, as an American subsidiary of the British publisher Benn Brothers Ltd. In 1984, he bought out the subsidiary rights and incorporated as Nick Lyons Books, Inc. It earned the reputation as one of the premier publishers of fishing books, but the company also printed works on nature, camping, adventure, gardening, woodworking, travel, the sea, history, food and wine, art and reference, hunting, general sport, and a few fiction titles. In 1989, in partnership with Peter Burford the name was changed to Lyons and Burford, Publishers. When Peter Burford left the company in 1997, it became the Lyons Press. In 1999, Tony Lyons, Nick's son, took over as President and Publisher of the firm with Nick remaining as Chairman of the Board. During its final full year of production in 2000, Lyons Press published 190 titles and had sales estimated at more than seven million dollars. In 2001 Lyons Press was acquired by Globe Pequot Press of Guilford, Connecticut. As well as being a book publisher Nick Lyons is a prolific writer and has produced several books on fly fishing. He has written introductions, forewords and prefaces for many Lyons Press books and also had a feature column of essays named the "Seasonable Angler" in Fly Fisherman Magazine for many years. Lyons has written articles for many other periodicals including Field and Stream and the New York Times, and several anthologies of these essays have been published. He is also a frequent speaker at functions devoted to fishing including museum openings, conventions, and meetings of assorted fly fishing organizations and clubs.
From the guide to the Nick Lyons Ephemera Collection, 1932-2005, (Montana State University-Bozeman Library, Merrill G Burlingame Special Collections)
