American book editor and publisher who scored his first success handling The Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer for Indianapolis publisher Bobbs-Merrill Company in 1936. He moved to Little, Brown and Company in 1938.
While editor at Little, Brown, Cameron was responsible for the promotion of then-unknown writer J. D. Salinger, controversial poet Ogden Nash, and various left wing authors including Lillian Hellman, Howard Fast, and Carey McWilliams. In 1947 the politically radical Cameron became a public target of red-baiting led by historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. over Little, Brown’s refusal to publish Animal Farm by George Orwell. He was ultimately forced out at Little, Brown in 1951 over controversy surrounding the proposed publication of Communist author Howard Fast’s novel Spartacus.
Following his departure from Little, Brown, Cameron found himself blacklisted from the mainstream publishing industry due to the pervasive climate of McCarthyism. In 1953 Cameron formed his own left wing publishing house, Cameron Associates, later joining forces with radical publisher Albert E. Kahn to launch the publishing house Cameron and Kahn. The blacklisting of Cameron ended only in 1959 when New York publisher Alfred A. Knopf hired him as a senior editor.
Cameron was married for 62 years to Sheila K Cameron until her death in 1998; the couple raised two children. Cameron died on 18 November 2002 in Charlottesville, Virginia, aged 93.
Link to Wikipedia biography