Margaret Petherbridge born on March 23, 1897, in Brooklyn, New York; died on June 11, 1984, in New York, New York, was the crossword-puzzle editor for the “New York Times”. She married John Chipman Farrar, a publisher, co-founder of Farrar & Straus, and author, on May 28, 1926.

Farrar was offered a position with the “New York World”, where, as secretary to the Sunday editor, she was placed in charge of the weekly crossword puzzle, a feature the World pioneered in 1913. By 1924, crosswords had become a national pastime, and Farrar with F. Gregory Hartswick and Prosper Buranelli, edited the “Crossword Puzzle Book”, the first of its kind. The book sold nearly 400,000 copies the first year, and she continued to edit puzzle books at the rate of about two a year. She also produced similar books as well as a Crossword Puzzle Omnibus series.

Once called the "world's supreme authority on crosswords," Margaret Farrar was the first editor of the much-revered crossword puzzles of “The New York Times” and also collaborated on the first “Crossword Puzzle Book”. In 1942, The “New York Times”, the only major North American newspaper to hold out against the crossword-puzzle craze, called on Farrar to edit a puzzle for the “Times Sunday Magazine”. In 1950, under Farrar's editorship, the newspaper introduced a daily crossword puzzle, and over the years also produced 18 collections of puzzles.

Before her retirement in 1968, she had edited over 130 collections of puzzles.

More Info: en.wikipedia.org