Ripley Hitchcock

Ripley Hitchcock, born James Ripley Wellman Hitchcock, (1857–1918) was a prominent American editor. He edited the works of Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, Zane Grey, Joel Chandler Harris, Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser.

Ripley Hitchcock was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, in 1857. His father was surgeon Alfred Hitchcock (1813-1874). He graduated from Harvard University in 1877. After his graduation, he was a special student at Harvard in fine arts and philosophy. He attended lectures at the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons for one year.

He started work as a journalist for The New York Tribune in 1882. In 1890, he became literary adviser for D. Appleton & Company, in which capacity he edited Edward Noyes Westcott's narrative David Harum (1898) into a bestseller, later made into a film. From 1902 to 1906, he worked for A. S. Barnes as vice president. From 1906 onwards, he worked as an editor for Harper and Brothers. He unfanged Stephen Crane's lewd details and Theodore Dreiser's irony.

He also wrote books on art and the history of the West and was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the Century Association and the Authors Club.