Walter Zacharius, who rode the passion-swollen wave of romance fiction in the early 1980s to build the Kensington Publishing Corp. into a leading purveyor of bodice-rippers and other romance genres, died Wednesday at his home in New York. He was 87.

The cause was pancreatic cancer, his son, Steven, said.

Zacharius emerged from the world of true-confession magazines and paperback genre fiction to found Kensington in 1974 with Roberta Grossman. Beating the bushes for overlooked writers and eager first-timers willing to start out cheap, the partners developed the careers of prolific and profit-generating authors like Janelle Taylor and Katherine Stone.

As it expanded the romance genre to embrace paranormal romance, adult Western romance and romance titles aimed at Hispanic, black and gay readers, Kensington branched out into new forms of distribution. Zacharius signed deals with Wal-Mart, sold his books on the shopping network QVC and saw the potential of e-books early on.

Through its Zebra, Dafina, Brava, Encanto and other imprints, Kensington publishes about 450 fiction and nonfiction books a year in a wide variety of genres. Although about 60 percent of its list is devoted to titles like “A Little Bit Sinful” and “A Storm of Pleasure,” it has also published “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell” by Tucker Max. With sales of $70 million, the company is the largest independent publisher of mass-market titles in the U.S. Zebra Books, the company’s sole imprint until the late 1980s, became known for its embossed covers, with a lurid “sunset” palette of purples, pinks and oranges and a bold use of foil. Zacharius pushed the taste boundary even further in 1989, when he began putting holograms on his covers.

Although the company occasionally published name writers, including Joyce Carol Oates, Isaac Asimov and Jerzy Kosinski, its economic well-being and its reputation lay with many writers largely unknown to The New York Review of Books — best-sellers like Fern Michaels, Lisa Jackson and Beverly Barton.

“We’re not impressed with what’s selling on Fifth Avenue or Rodeo Drive,” Zacharius told The New York Times in 1982. “Our readers patronize suburban shopping malls.”

Walter Zacharius was born on Oct. 16, 1923, in New York, and attended public schools. He enlisted in the Army soon after leaving high school and took part in the Normandy invasion and the liberation of Paris.

After returning to the U.S., he found a job with Macfadden Publications, working on magazines like True Confessions and True Story before teaming up with Aaron Wyn at Ace, where he helped create Ace Double Novels, a paperback line that offered two books in one volume.

With Irwin Stein, he founded Lancer Books in 1961 to publish genre fiction, primarily science fiction and fantasy, notably the “Conan the Barbarian” stories of Robert E. Howard. The company also turned out erotic crime and spy novels.