James Atlas is the founding editor of the Penguin Lives, a series of book-length biographical essays that "examine life-defining moments of great individuals who have shaped our culture." In 2002 he founded his own publishing company, Atlas Books. Mr. Atlas is also a writer and biographer. Among the books he has written are Delmore Schwartz: The Life of an American Poet, which was published in 1977 and nominated for a National Book Award; Bellow: A Biography, published in 2000; and a memoir entitled My Life in the Middle Ages: A Survivor's Tale (2005). He has been a staff writer for Time, The Atlantic, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, and has worked as an editor at The New York Times Book Review and The New York Times Magazine. Mr. Atlas holds a degree magna cum laude from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and studied at New College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar.