Thomas Guinzburg | Paris Review cofounder, 84

Thomas Guinzburg, 84, who helped found the celebrated literary journal Paris Review and later ran Viking Press, died Wednesday in New York of complications from heart surgery, his longtime companion, Victoria Anstead, said.

A Yale graduate and World War II veteran, Mr. Guinzburg helped launch the Paris Review in 1953 with its legendary founder, George Plimpton, who served for nearly five decades as the magazine's editor until his death in 2003.

As one of America's premiere venues for fiction and poetry, the Paris Review has published work by some of literature's great stars, including Philip Roth, Jack Kerouac, and V.S. Naipaul.

Mr. Guinzburg served as the magazine's first managing editor and later as president of its board.

He started at Viking Press, the publisher founded by his father, Harold Guinzburg, in 1954, eventually becoming its president. Pearson, the British conglomerate that owns Penguin Books, bought Viking in 1975 and Mr. Guinzburg left the company in 1978.

In his later years, Mr. Guinzburg shifted his attention from literature to philanthropy, Anstead said. He helped form a group of donors called the "Dream Team" at the Society of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, which grants wishes to adult cancer patients. And he sponsored the I Have a Dream foundation, created to help cover the cost of college tuition for low-income students. - AP