Robert Giroux, the editorial architect who jazzed up the works of some of the most important writers of the 20^th century and helped Farrar, Straus and Giroux become one of the most valued publishing houses in the world, died on September 5 at an assisted living facility in Tinton Falls, New Jersey. He was 94. The cause of death was not immediately disclosed.

As Mr.Giroux managed the works of numerous authors who received the Nobel Prize for Literature and discovered dozens of writers at the beginning of their career, he was followed by many of the big names of modern literature when he left Harcourt, Brace & Co. to join Farrar, Straus in 1955.

Robert Giroux discovered or developed the works of Jack Kerouac, Flannery O’Connor, Jean Stafford, Bernard Malamud, William Gaddis, John Berryman, Susan Sontag, Thomas Merton, Larry Woiwode and Randall Jarrell. In addition to this, he edited seven Nobel laureates: T.S. Eliot, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Derek Walcott, Nadine Gordimer, Seamus Heaney, William Golding and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

Explaining his way of cultivating talented authors, Mr. Giroux said: “Patience is a large part of it, and judgment and loyalty. You have to have a commitment to the author. If you believe in the author, you are willing to wait.”

The youngest of five children, Robert Giroux was born April 8, 1914, in Jersey City, New Jersey to Arthur J. Giroux, a foreman for a silk company, and Katharine Lyons Giroux, a grade-school teacher.

During World War II, Mr. Giroux worked for the Navy as an intelligence officer, reaching the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

Among the honors he received for his work were an honorary doctorate from Seton Hall University in 1999, The Mayoral Award of Honor for Art and Culture from the City of New York in 1989 and the Elmer Holmes Bobst Award in Arts and Letters from New York University in 1988.