Gross, Albert

The personal life of Albert H. (Pete) Gross (1895-1948), who worked in publishing and translated Sholem Asch's East River from Yiddish, is largely undocumented. Gross was born in Leeds, England, and moved to the United States sometime before 1924. He died of a heart attack on August 16, 1948. At the time of his death, he was survived by his wife, Henrietta (Slater) Gross and their two children, Nancy and Herman.

In 1924, Gross, Alexander Trachtenberg, and A. A. Heller founded International Publishers, a socialist publishing house in New York. The firm specialized in English translations of leftist European literature. Their notable publications included Trotsky's Literature and Revolution, a collection of post-Revolutionary Russian short stories, and English translations of the novels of Pierre Hamp. By 1927, Gross had ended his association with International Publishers. He was later employed by publishers, including Boni & Liveright, its successor Horace Liveright, Inc., and Coward-McCann, Inc., and by A. and S. Lyons Inc., which negotiated movie and play rights for writers.

Gross worked in publishing for more than two decades. Among the writers he helped bring to mass audiences were Sherwood Anderson, Theodore Dreiser, Gene Fowler, Ernest Hemingway, Robinson Jeffers, and Eugene O'Neill. During his publishing career, he also corresponded with such literary and intellectual figures as Albert Einstein, William Faulkner, Georgia O'Keefe, Upton Sinclair, and Thornton Wilder. In 1938 and 1939, while at A. and S. Lyons, Gross worked to publish Thomas Mann's anti-Nazi work, "To the Civilized World: A Manifesto." He sought signatures from contemporary authors and intellectual figures in support of Mann's manifesto and organized a round-table discussion featuring literary and intellectual figures concerning Naziism and fascism, held on December 18, 1938, at Carnegie Hall. Despite Gross's efforts, there was little public support for Mann's manifesto, and the author eventually withdrew it from publication.

From the guide to the Albert Gross papers, 1924-1946, 1924-1946, (Literature and Rare Books)

Epithet: of the Hammersmith Labour Party

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000206.0x00015c