Fred Hills

Fred Hills
Born	1934-11-26 East Orange, New Jersey, U.S.
Died	2020-11-07 Bronxville, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Literary editor
Years active	1950s–2020
Known for	Editor at McGraw Hill and Simon & Schuster; worked with Vladimir Nabokov, Raymond Carver, Heinrich Böll

Frederic Wheeler Hills Jr. (1934–2020), widely recognized as Fred Hills, was a prominent American literary editor affiliated with both McGraw Hill and Simon & Schuster. Throughout his career, he collaborated extensively with distinguished authors such as Vladimir Nabokov, Raymond Carver, and Heinrich Böll.

Biography

Hills was born on November 26, 1934, in East Orange, New Jersey. He was the son of engineer Frederic Wheeler Hills and homemaker Mildred Chambers (Hood) Hills. In 1956, he graduated from Columbia College with a bachelor's degree in English, where he studied under esteemed critics including Mark Van Doren and Lionel Trilling. He then pursued graduate studies at Stanford University, earning a master's degree in English in 1958, guided by Pulitzer Prize winner Wallace Stegner. After completing his service in the United States Army at Fort Ord, Hills briefly entered the retail sector before joining McGraw Hill’s college textbook division. Rising through the ranks to become editor in chief, he later took charge of the trade books division. His editorial partnership with Vladimir Nabokov became a defining highlight of his career, continuing until Nabokov’s death in 1977, notably following the 1974 release of Look at the Harlequins!.

In 1979, Hills transitioned from McGraw Hill to join Simon & Schuster’s editorial team. There, he broadened his scope by working with a diverse array of authors including M. Scott Peck, William Saroyan, Ann Rule, Jane Fonda, and Arianna Huffington. His editorial influence also extended to prominent personalities such as Raymond Carver, James McGregor Burns, Phil Donahue, and David Halberstam. Among his notable editorial accomplishments are Pulitzer Prize-winning The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power by Daniel Yergin, Madonna Unauthorized by Christopher Andersen, and Ann Rule’s The Stranger Beside Me.

In 1980, Hills married Kathleen Matthews, a writer who had previously worked at McGraw Hill. The couple had two sons together. Fred Hills passed away on November 7, 2020, at his residence in Bronxville, New York. He is survived by his wife, four children—including two from an earlier marriage—and other relatives.

See also

• Jane Fonda