Born April 15, 1914 in New York City; studied at the Educational Alliance in New York in 1929 and at the New School for Social Research.

He shared a studio with Pierre Martinot in West 16th Street at the end of the '30s; during the war years he was art director at the World Publishing Company, which published both Tower Books and Forum Books.

Manso also worked for Harper & Row, Simon & Schuster, E.P.Dutton, Farrar Straus, Viking, Macmillan and other hardcover firms; through his work with Simon & Schuster he became involved with Pocket Books, for whom he produced so many covers during the years 1943-1945 that his impact on the appearance of that company's books was almost as decisive as Robert Jonas' impact at Penguin.

In the late '40s, Manso was one of the founders of the Book Jacket Designers Guild; the group was largely composed of people who had gathered around calligrapher and designer George Salter at the Cooper Union for Advancement of Science and Art. Via Salter, Manso began teaching at Columbia Universtity and New York University als well.

(from The Book of Paperbacks by Piet Schreuders, Virgin Press, 1981)