Kathy Hourigan to Retire from Knopf Doubleday

After a 60-year career in publishing, Knopf Doubleday v-p and managing editor Kathy Hourigan will retire in December as part of Penguin Random House's voluntary severance offer package announced earlier this year.

Hourigan joined Knopf in 1963 as assistant to legendary Knopf editor Judith Jones. The longest tenured employee at Penguin Random House, Hourigan has worked with all four Knopf publishers: Alfred A. Knopf, Bob Gottlieb, Sonny Mehta, and Reagan Arthur.

Throughout her career, Hourigan guided thousands of books to publication, including titles by Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, and Michael Ondaatje. She is perhaps best known for her five-decade collaboration with Robert A. Caro on The Power Broker and The Years of Lyndon Johnson series.

“In losing Katherine Hourigan, the publishing house of Knopf is losing more than just the unparalleled institutional memory built up over the course of 60 years," said Caro in a statement. "It is losing a link to, and a key to, its greatness. Kathy worked on my books for almost 50 years, and during all that time I learned to trust absolutely her literary sensibility—when she voiced an opinion on one of my manuscripts, I learned I had better listen to it—and her integrity: I don't think Kathy ever uttered a word she didn't mean.”