Orville Prescott was the main book reviewer for the New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

for 24 years.

Born in Cleveland, Prescott graduated from Williams College

Williams College

Williams College is a private liberal arts college located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams. Originally a men's college, Williams became co-educational in 1970. Fraternities were also phased out during this...

 in 1930. He began his career as a researcher for Newsweek

Newsweek

Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...

, then known as News-Week, and became the literary editor of Cue before joining the Times, where he wrote three or four book reviews every week from 1942 through 1966. His reviews showed a preference for traditional novels with strong narratives and clear characterizations. In 1961, Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...

 wrote a scathing portrait of Prescott as a reviewer. Vidal later wrote that Prescott was so offended by his depiction of a homosexual love affair in The City and the Pillar that he refused to review his work or allow the Times to review it.

Prescott edited three anthologies about history and after his retirement wrote two books about the Italian Renaissance

Italian Renaissance

The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...

.

Works

• The Five Dollar Gold Piece: The Development of a Point of View (1956)
• History as Literature (1971)
• Mid-Century: An Anthology of Distinguished Contemporary American Short Stories (1973)

• Lords of Italy: Portraits of the Middle Ages (1972)
• Princes of the Renaissance: A Chronicle of the Private Lives and Public Careers of the Kings, Dukes, Popes and Despots Who Ruled Italy in the Fifteenth Century (1970)