Remembering Bill Morris

When William C. Morris, HarperCollins’s legendary library promotion director, died on September 29 at the age of seventy-four, the Horn Book lost a good friend, and I lost one of my best ones. He was my boss in the early 1980s, a friendly competitor afterward, and a drinking buddy throughout. That was one of Bill’s greatest gifts: discovering the nicest bar in town, charming you with southern flattery, slaying you with wicked northern wit, and then picking up the check. It was heavenly to go out with him.

Armed with a B.A. in literature from Rice and an M.A. from Duke, Bill left his native Texas for New York City in the 1950s and eventually landed a typing job at Harper & Brothers. The work was temporary but Bill stayed put, becoming a sales rep for the company and then joining the promotion department in 1965. His ambition was to convince all librarians that while most children’s books were good, only Harper’s were great. It was work for an evangelist, and Bill Morris, though no Billy Sunday, was a true believer in the power of literature and the glory of great writers. He died at home, an elegant and cluttered Manhattan apartment where the likes of Jean Craighead George, Henry James, Edmund Wilson, and Charlotte Zolotow jostled for shelf space.

—Anne Quirk

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