John Ferrone

John Ferrone was born in Morristown, New Jersey, on August 14, 1924, to Italian immigrant parents. He graduated from Colorado College, and then Stanford University, where he earned a master’s degree in creative writing. After serving in World War II, Ferrone went on to work for Dell Publishing and Harcourt, Brace & World until his retirement in 1990. He is best known for his tremendous editing work and collaboration with Alice Walker on her Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, The Color Purple. Ferrone has also edited Quentin Bell’s Virginia Woolf: A Biography, Anaïs Nin’s New York Times bestseller Delta of Venus, and Eudora Welty’s National Book Award winner The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty. He has also edited many of James Beard’s kitchen volumes. Ferrone died of complications caused by Parkinson’s disease in Old Bridge, New Jersey, on April 10, 2016.