B. Lippincott, Publisher and Author, Dies

Bertram Lippincott, a noted publisher and author and whose grandfather founded the venerable J. B. Lippincott publishing house in 1792, has died. He was 87.

Lippincott, who died April 28 at his home here, also was a grandson of Joseph Wharton, founder of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

After serving with the Navy’s tanker fleet and the American Friends Service Ambulance Corps during World War I, Lippincott received a degree from Princeton University and joined the family publishing house, where he worked as an editor for more than 30 years.

Famous Authors

Among the authors he brought to the reading public were Mary O’Hara, author of “My Friend Flicka,” and Baroness Maria von Trapp, whose “The Story of the Trapp Family Singers” was made into the film “The Sound of Music.”

Lippincott himself wrote two books, “Indians, Privateers and High Society,” a history of Rhode Island published in 1961, and the “Jamestown Sampler,” a history of Conanicut Island, R.I., published privately in 1980.

He also was a yachtsman, racing to Bermuda four times under the flag of the Conanicut Yacht Club, of which he was commodore.

He is survived by his wife, Elsie Graham Hirst Lippincott, two sons, two daughters and 14 grandchildren.