Sept. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Robert Giroux, a partner at publishing house Farrar, Straus & Giroux, died today at an independent-living facility in Tinton Falls, New Jersey, the New York Times said, citing his niece Kathleen Mulvehill. He was 94.

As a publisher and editor, Giroux nurtured and introduced some of the most famous authors of the 20th century, including T.S. Eliot, George Orwell, Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, Robert Lowell, Katherine Anne Porter and Virginia Woolf, the Times reported.

Giroux was Eliot's American editor and published the U.S. edition of Orwell's ``1984,'' the Times said. He also edited Carl Sandburg and Elizabeth Bishop and persuaded William Saroyan to turn ``The Human Comedy'' into a novel from a film script, which became a hit, the Times said.

He also had two major books slip through his hands, the newspaper said. Jack Kerouac stormed out of Giroux's office when he wouldn't agree to publish ``On the Road'' without making any changes. When Harcourt, Brace & Co. refused to print J.D. Salinger's ``The Catcher in the Rye,'' which Giroux had been working on, Giroux left to join New York-based Farrar, Straus & Co. in 1955 as editor in chief, the newspaper said. By 1964, he was made partner, according to the Times.

Giroux was born the youngest of five children in 1914 and dropped out of Regis High School in Manhattan to take a job with The Jersey Journal, the newspaper said. He graduated from Columbia University in 1936 and joined the Navy during World War II, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant commander, the Times said.

He is survived by Mulvehill and two other nieces, the Times said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Joseph Galante in San Francisco at jgalante3@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: September 5, 2008 17:57 EDT