Robert Gottlieb has been editor in chief of Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf, and `The New Yorker'. Books he has edited during his almost fifty years in publishing range from `Catch-22' to `My Life' by Bill Clinton, and include, in the dance field, books by Margot Fonteyn, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Natalia Makarova, Paul Taylor, and Lincoln Kirstein. For many years he was associated with New York City Ballet as a member of the board of directors and as an unofficial part of management. Currently he writes literary criticism for the `New York Review of Books', the `New York Times Book Review', and `The New Yorker', and is the dance critic for the `New York Observer'.