#Ny times crossword editor margaret series#

Lincoln Schuster, who were launching a book publishing company but did not yet have any manuscripts. In January 1924 Petherbridge was given an advance of $25 and asked to compile a book of crossword puzzles by Richard L. She subsequently described her reaction as '(taking) an oath to edit the crosswords to the essence of perfection ' her puzzles eventually became more popular than Wynne's. Petherbridge had never solved a puzzle herself and therefore chose puzzles to be printed without testing them, until fellow World employee Franklin Pierce Adams criticized her for it in response, she tried the puzzles, and discovered to her dismay that some of them were unsolvable.

She had been hired as the secretary to the editor of the Sunday edition of the New York World he eventually assigned her to assist crossword inventor Arthur Wynne, who was overloaded with reader submissions of puzzles – and with complaints about flawed puzzles. Her career in crossword puzzles began at the New York World in 1921. A lifelong resident of New York City, she attended Berkeley Institute in Brooklyn and graduated from Smith College in 1919. Margaret Petherbridge was born March 23, 1897, in Brooklyn, New York, to Margaret (Furey) and Henry Petherbridge, who owned a licorice factory.

#Ny times crossword editor margaret series#

Creator of many of the rules of modern crossword design, she compiled and edited a long-running series of crossword puzzle books including the first-ever book of any kind published by Simon & Schuster. Margaret Petherbridge Farrar (Ma– June 11, 1984) was an American journalist and the first crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times (1942–1968).

Margaret Petherbridge, from the 1919 yearbook of Smith College