While Jones’s memoir is a quicker, more effervescent read, Franklin, a loyal amanuensis, has filled in the holes, restored the cultural context and talked up the triumphs in an extraordinary life..

Essential if adulatory.

Engaging.

The Editor presents [Jones] as both a case study and an agent of change in American conceptions of femininity inside and outside the home. But it also reads, more often than not, like a love story: a great, sweeping seven-decade romance between a woman and her work..

A fascinating biography about a true force in the publishing industry.

Intimate and illuminating.

Franklin lionizes her subject yet includes Jones’ admission of mistakes—notably, passing on Plath’s The Bell Jar. Sometimes heavy with dry details, but a thorough and humanizing portrait..