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Nevler, Leona Joan

Female 1926 - 2005  (79 years)


Personal Information    |    Notes    |    Sources    |    All    |    PDF

  • Name Nevler, Leona Joan  [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
    Born 20 May 1926  Lynn, Essex, Massachusetts, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 2, 5, 7, 8
    Gender Female 
    Died 10 Dec 2005  New York, New York, New York, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 5, 7, 9
    Obituary for Leona Nevler 23 Dec 2005  [10
    Person ID I8293  Our Family
    Last Modified 16 Jan 2024 

    Family Silberman, James Henry 
    Children 
    +1. Silberman, Michael David
    +2. Silberman, Ellen Judith
    Last Modified 16 Jan 2024 
    Family ID F3758  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Notes 
    • Leona Nevler, a prominent book editor who 50 years ago helped secure the publication of a first novel set in an imaginary town called Peyton Place, died on Saturday at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. She was 79 and had homes in Manhattan and Westport, Conn. The cause was a pulmonary embolism after surgery, her daughter, Ellen J. Silberman, said. At her death, Ms. Nevler was a senior editor at Berkley Books, an imprint of the Penguin Group. For much of her career she was an executive at Fawcett Books. Known primarily for publishing paperbacks, Ms. Nevler handled the work of many prominent writers, among them John Updike, Margaret Atwood, Jane Smiley, P. D. James, Dick Francis, James A. Michener, Jeffrey Archer, Amy Tan and Fannie Flagg. Leona Joan Nevler was born in Lynn, Mass., and earned a bachelor's degree in English from Boston University in 1947. Her first publishing job was with Little, Brown, followed, in the mid-1950's, by a stint as a manuscript reader for Lippincott. She joined Fawcett in 1955. While reading for Lippincott, Ms. Nevler was sent the draft of a novel by a New Hampshire housewife named Grace Metalious. Originally titled "The Tree and the Blossom," it chronicled the dark sexual underside of a picture-postcard New England town. The book had far too much steam for Lippincott, as Ms. Nevler knew. She recommended it instead to Kathryn G. Messner, who ran Julian Messner, an independent publishing house in New York. Ms. Messner snapped it up, asking Ms. Nevler to help edit the manuscript as a freelance. Published in 1956, "Peyton Place" went on to sell more than 10 million copies and spawn several movies and a television series. The title became a catchphrase for suburban dysfunction. At Fawcett, Ms. Nevler helped start the Crest Books reprint line and held various editorial positions, eventually becoming vice president and publisher of Fawcett Books. She left in 1981 and moved to Ballantine Books, which had acquired the Fawcett list. She retired from Ballantine in 2001 as a senior vice president and editorial director. Ms. Nevler's marriage to James H. Silberman ended in divorce. Besides her daughter, of Newton, Mass., she is survived by a son, Michael Silberman, of Montclair, N.J.; a sister, Alberta N. Grossman of Manhattan and Westport; and four grandchildren.

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      NEVLER--Leona. On December 10, 2005. Suddenly, she left a love that was spread through a family and beyond. She was the dear mother of Ellen and Michael Silberman and their spouses Brian Baron and Emily Eldridge, and devoted grandmother of Sophie, Eli, Ethan and Jacob. With the same gentleness and understanding with which she guided the young of her family, she helped writers become authors over her 50 years as one of the first women in publishing. Smart and elegant, she loved good food, stylish clothes and a good turn of phrase. Generous (to a fault) to her family, she is deeply missed by her sister Alberta N. Grossman, brother-in-law Lawrence K. Grossman, nieces Susan Grossman, Jenny Peltz and Caroline Grossman, and their husbands, Sanford Cohen, Andrew Peltz and Andrew Greene, and her six grandnieces and nephews: Rebecca, Ben, Hilary, Allyson, Sarah and Jeremy.

  • Sources 
    1. [S21] U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014, Ancestry.com, (Name: Ancestry.com Operations Inc;), Issue State: Massachusetts; Issue Date: Before 1951.

    2. [S977] Massachusetts, Birth Index, 1901-1960 and 1967-1970, Ancestry.com, (Name: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.;).
      Massachusetts, Birth Index, 1901-1960 and 1967-1970
      Massachusetts, Birth Index, 1901-1960 and 1967-1970


    3. [S1] geni.com, middle name.

    4. [S239] Original Import into Legacy.

    5. [S169] U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007, Ancestry.com, (Name: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.;).

    6. [S19] New York City, Marriage Indexes, 1907-1995, Ancestry.com, (Name: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.;), New York City Municipal Archives; New York, New York.

    7. [S293] Social Security Death Index, Ancestry.com, (Name: Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2007;).

    8. [S413] Massachusetts Birth Index.

    9. [S15] Obituary, for Leona.

    10. [S1453] Newspapers.com - The Los Angeles Times - 23 Dec 2005 - Page 20, (Name: The Los Angeles Times;), Obituary for Leona Nevler (Aged 79) 23 Dec 2005.