William H. Hendelson – Biography & Facts

William H. Hendelson (born July 26, 1904 in Berlin; died May 28, 1975 in New York City) was a German-American encyclopedist and editor.

William H. Hendelson was a son of the bookseller and owner of the publishing house Theodor Knaur successor Gabriel Hendelson (1861–1916) and Martha Sandberg. He received lessons from a private tutor and then attended high school in Berlin-Grunewald. From 1922 he worked as a partner in the publishing house now run by Adalbert Droemer, in which he Knaur’s encyclopedia and Knaur’s world atlas published. After the handover of power to the National Socialists, he and his brother had to leave the publishing house in 1934.

Hendelsohn managed to emigrate to the USA in 1938, where he received citizenship in 1944. In 1940 he gave a new edition of the Outline of history by HG Wells, a Rembrandt Bible with Oswald Goetz in 1941. From 1944 to 1963 he was editor of Funk & Wagnalls World scope encyclopediafrom 1953 to 1963 Standard International Encyclopediafrom 1946 to 1969 of Encyclopedia Yearbook and from 1971 he published the 27-volume volume at Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia out, as well as other encyclopedic books and series that were also sold in supermarkets, also as so-called luxury editions.

• William Hendelson, J. Bernays Heller: Practical English for Germans : guide to the American English language ; grammar, words, idioms and expressions for daily use, with phonetic indications on pronunciation personal and business letters, money, weights and measures, etc. New York: Dodd Mead, 1940
• (Ed.): Edward Hungerford: From covered wagon to streamliner. New York, NY: The Greystone Press, 1941
• (Ed.): A picture almanac for boys and girls : a fascinating introduction into the wonderland of everyday knowledge. Illustrations Samuel Nisenson. Text Grace L. Kohl. Garden City, NY: Garden City Publ., 1942
• William Hendelson, Paul Zucker (eds.): The music lovers’ almanac. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran and Comp., 1943
• (Ed.): World scope encyclopedia : book for the year 1946 ; the first year of peace in retrospect. New York, NY: Universal Educational Guild, 1947

• Hendelson, William H. In: Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933–1945. Volume 2.1. Munich: Saur, 1983, p. 488
• Hendelson, William H. In: Ernst Fischer: Publishers, booksellers & antiquarians from Germany and Austria in emigration after 1933: A biographical handbook. Elbingen: Association of German Antiquarians, 2011, p. 129