Simeon Strunsky - Biography

Simeon Strunsky, A.B. (July 23, 1879–February 5, 1948) was a Jewish American essayist, born in Vitebsk, Russian Empire (present day Belarus). His parents are Isidor S. and Perl Wainstein. He graduated from Columbia University in 1900. He was a department editor of the New International Encyclopedia from 1900 to 1906, editorial writer on the New York Evening Post from 1906 to 1913, and subsequently was literary editor of that paper until 1920. His columns also appeared in Atlantic Monthly, Bookman, Collier's, and Harper's Weekly. He wrote:

• Through the Outlooking Glass with Theodore Roosevelt (1912)
• The Patient Observer (1911)
• Belshazzar Court, or Village Life in New York City (1914)
• Post-Impressions (1914)
• Little Journeys Towards Paris. By W. Hohenzollern. (1918)

He joined the New York Times in 1924 and was on staff until his death in Princeton, New Jersey after three months of hospitalization. He was married to Socialist activist Manya Gordon; they had a son and a daughter. He had a son, Robert Strunsky, by his first wife, Rebecca Slobodkin (d. 1906).

Strunsky's most notable contributions to the Times were his editorial-page essays titled "Topics of the Times." Although it now competes with such departments as "Editorial Observer" and is infrequently seen nowadays, "Topics of the Times" remains a popular feature of the paper.

Books

• Strunsky, Simeon - King Akhnaton, (1928) Published by Longmans, Green & Co.