A native of New Jersey, Giroux first got involved in publishing as an undergraguate at Columbia, where he worked on the Columbia Review. After a job as a junior editor at the former Harcourt, Brace & Company, he moved into the house in 1955 that would later bear his name. He took with him an impressive lineup of authors—Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, Bernard Malamud, T.S. Eliot, Seamus Heaney, Jack Kerouac, and Madeleine L'Engle among them. In 1964, Giroux became a full partner at Farrar, Straus when his name was added to the company. In addition to editing some of the greatest authors of the 20th century, Giroux also wrote a number of his own books, inlcuding The Education of an Editor and A Deed of Death.