Alfred A. Knopf Jr., whose parents launched the publishing house bearing his father's name, has died at the age of 90.

Knopf's wife, Alice, said her husband died Saturday of complications from a fall in mid-January.

Knopf was the only child of Alfred Knopf and Blanche Wolf Knopf, giants in the field of publishing. He left his parents' New York-based company, Alfred A. Knopf Inc., in 1959 to co-found Atheneum Publishers.

Among Atheneum's releases were Theodore White's The Making of the President, 1960 and Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Atheneum is now run by Simon & Shuster and publishes children's books.

Knopf retired from publishing in 1988.

Alfred A. Knopf Inc. was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Publishing Group at Random House.