Justin Kaplan is an American writer and editor.

Kaplan received his bachelor of science degree from Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 in 1945. After pursuing a post-graduate degree for two years, he left graduate school to work for the publishing house Simon & Schuster

Simon & Schuster

Simon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...

, where he eventually became a senior editor.

Kaplan left publishing for writing in 1959 and began work on his first biography, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain, a study of the famous author that was published in 1966. The book was a tremendous critical success, winning both the Pulitzer Prize

Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

 for biography and a National Book Award

National Book Award

The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...

 in 1967. He followed this up with two more well-received biographies, Lincoln Steffens, A Biography (1974), and Walt Whitman, A Life (1980), which won an American Book Award

American Book Award

The American Book Award was established in 1978 by the Before Columbus Foundation. It seeks to recognize outstanding literary achievement by contemporary American authors, without restriction to race, sex, ethnic background, or genre...

. He also edited several anthologies and the 16th and 17th editions of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, often simply called Bartlett's, is an American reference work that is the longest-lived and most widely distributed collection of quotations...

(1992, 2002).

Kaplan married author Anne Bernays

Anne Bernays

Anne Bernays is an American novelist, editor, and teacher.-Life:A graduate of Barnard College, she was managing editor of discovery, a literary magazine, before moving from New York to Cambridge, MA, in 1959 when she began her career as a novelist.Bernays has been published widely in national...

in 1954. The two have written a double memoir entitled Back Then: Two Lives in 1950s New York, as well as a 1997 book The Language of Names. Kaplan and Bernays live in Cambridge and Truro, Massachusetts.

Kaplan's most recent book is When the Astors Owned New York: Blue Bloods and Grand Hotels in a Gilded Age (2006).