William Shawn (né Chon; August 31, 1907 – December 8, 1992) was an American magazine editor who edited The New Yorker from 1952 until 1987.

Shawn was born William Chon on August 31, 1907, in Chicago, Illinois, to Benjamin T. Chon,[1] a cutlery salesman, and Anna Bransky Chon. He was the youngest of five. His older siblings were Harold (1892–1967), Melba (1894–1964), Nelson (1898–1974), and Myron (1902–1987). His family were non-observant Jews from Eastern Europe.[2] William dropped out of the University of Michigan after two years (1925–1927)[3] and began working.

Shawn traveled to Las Vegas, New Mexico,[4] where he worked at the local newspaper, The Optic. He returned to Chicago and worked as a journalist. Around 1930 he changed the spelling of his last name to Shawn. In 1932, he and his wife, Cecille, moved to New York City, where he tried to start a career as a composer.

Soon after their arrival in New York City, Cecille took a fact checking job at The New Yorker magazine, and her husband began working there in 1933.[2] His temperament contrasted with that of the magazine's founder Harold Ross. Colleagues later described him as "shy", "deferential", having a "strange presence". Lillian Ross recalled that Shawn believed in the value of every life, even that of Hitler. Shawn stayed with the magazine for 53 years.

A few weeks after Ross died in December 1951, Shawn was named editor.[1] His quiet style was a marked contrast to Ross's noisy manner. Whereas Ross constantly wrote letters to his contributors, Shawn hated to share anything, especially on paper. His shyness was office (and New York) legend, as were his claustrophobia and fear of elevators; many of his colleagues maintain that he carried a hatchet in his briefcase, in case he became trapped.

Shawn would buy articles and then not run them for years, if ever. Staff members were given offices and salaries even if they produced little for the magazine; Joseph Mitchell, whose work had appeared regularly during the 1950s and early 1960s, continued to come to his office from 1965 until his death in 1996 without ever publishing another word. Shawn gave writers vast space to cover their subjects, and nearly all of them (including Dwight Macdonald, Hannah Arendt, and England's Kenneth Tynan) spoke reverently of him. J. D. Salinger adored him, and dedicated Franny and Zooey to Shawn.

While The Addams Family comics debuted in The New Yorker in 1938, Shawn banned them from the publication following the release of the 1964 TV series, as he did not want the image of his publication associated with a mainstream sitcom. The ban remained in effect long after the TV series concluded, persisting until Shawn's retirement in 1987.