Jason Epstein

Epstein was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on August 25, 1928. His father, Robert, worked as a partner in the family textile business; his mother, Gladys (Shapiro), was a housewife.{{Cite news |last=Lehmann-Haupt |first=Christopher |date=February 4, 2022 |title=Jason Epstein, Editor and Publishing Innovator, Is Dead at 93 |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/books/jason-epstein-dead.html |url-status=live |access-date=February 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220205051920/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/books/jason-epstein-dead.html |archive-date=February 5, 2022}}{{Cite news |last=Schudel |first=Matt |date=February 4, 2022 |title=Jason Epstein, publishing executive who shaped literary tastes, dies at 93 |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/02/04/publisher-jason-epstein-dies/ |url-status=live |access-date=February 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220209080738/https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/02/04/publisher-jason-epstein-dies/ |archive-date=February 9, 2022}} His family was Jewish.{{Cite web |last=Meyer |first=Eugene L. |date=April 17, 2012 |title=Jason Epstein: Publishing Icon, Perennial Student |url=http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/index.php/features/jason-epstein-e2809949-publishing-icon-perennial-student |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180630081203/http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/index.php/features/jason-epstein-e2809949-publishing-icon-perennial-student |archive-date=June 30, 2018 |website=Washington Independent Review of Books}} An only child, he attended public schools in Milton, Massachusetts, completing high school at age 15. He studied English literature at Columbia University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1949, before obtaining a Master of Arts the following year.

After graduating, Epstein joined Doubleday and Company as an editorial trainee,{{Cite book |last=Thompson |first=John B. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ziQqEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT41 |title=Merchants of Culture: The Publishing Business in the Twenty-First Century |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2021 |isbn=978-1-5095-2894-3 |language=en}} earning $45 a week. While working there, he saw the need for inexpensive, well-made paperbacks of the kinds of books that his classmates, many of them veterans studying on the GI Bill, were reading but could not afford to own in their hardcover editions. With the support of Ken McCormick, Doubleday's chief editor, he launched Anchor Books in 1953.{{Cite news |title=Jason Epstein obituary |newspaper=The Times |language=en |url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/article/jason-epstein-obituary-dcrhptcqh |url-status=live |access-date=2022-03-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220228083143/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jason-epstein-obituary-dcrhptcqh |archive-date=February 28, 2022 |issn=0140-0460}}[http://www.publishinghistory.com/anchor-books-doubleday.html Anchor Books (Doubleday) – Book Series List] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190303082451/https://www.publishinghistory.com/anchor-books-doubleday.html |date=March 3, 2019 }}, publishinghistory.com. Retrieved May 20, 2017. This was the first so-called Quality Paperbacks, which quickly became the dominant paperback format. In 1954 Anchor Books won the Carey–Thomas Award.{{Cite book |last=Satterfield |first=Jay |url=https://archive.org/details/worldsbestbookst00satt |title=The World's Best Books |publisher=Univ of Massachusetts Press |year=2002 |isbn=9781558493537 |page=[https://archive.org/details/worldsbestbookst00satt/page/161 161] |quote=carey-thomas award publishers weekly anchor books. |url-access=registration}}

Epstein left Doubleday in 1958, frustrated at the company's refusal to publish Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel, Lolita. He joined Random House publishers, and eventually became editorial director in 1976, serving in that capacity until 1995. At Random House, he edited such writers as Jane Jacobs, Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, Gore Vidal, Vladimir Nabokov, E. L. Doctorow, Michael Korda,{{Cite news |date=August 22, 1982 |title=The Korda Touch |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1982/08/22/the-korda-touch/0ecc0f70-5923-4e64-9e03-8b3b351b5197/ |access-date=February 8, 2022}} Benzion Netanyahu,{{Cite news |last=Joffe |first=Lawrence |date=May 1, 2012 |title=Benzion Netanyahu obituary |work=The Guardian |location=London |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/01/benzion-netanyahu |url-status=live |access-date=February 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220208192657/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/01/benzion-netanyahu |archive-date=February 8, 2022}} Peter Matthiessen,{{Cite magazine |last=Lalinde |first=Jaime |date=July 22, 2015 |title=E.L. Doctorow's Longtime Editor: "No One Could Possibly Say a Bad Word About Him" |magazine=Vanity Fair |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/07/el-doctorows-longtime-editor-no-one-could-possibly-say-a-bad-word-about-him |access-date=February 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210412194800/https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/07/el-doctorows-longtime-editor-no-one-could-possibly-say-a-bad-word-about-him |archive-date=April 12, 2021 |quote="Matthiessen (whom Epstein also edited …"}} and Paul Kennedy.{{Cite news |last=McDowell |first=Edwin |date=March 8, 1988 |title=Publishing – Nonfiction Can Be Best Seller |page=C13 |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/08/books/publishing-nonfiction-can-be-best-seller.html |url-status=live |access-date=February 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220208192657/https://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/08/books/publishing-nonfiction-can-be-best-seller.html |archive-date=February 8, 2022}} He also worked with Ted Geisel, better known as Dr Seuss, who arrived with storyboards to recite "Green Eggs and Ham". He acquired a reputation of being rude and ridiculing other editors' suggestions. He admitted that he was a "disagreeable presence" as he had little patience with other people. Nevertheless, he continued to edit the company's most valuable authors after being relieved of his post as editorial director in 1984.

During the New York newspaper strike of 1963, Epstein, his wife Barbara, and their friends Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick created The New York Review of Books. As he was working for Random House, he couldn't be an editor for this as well. So they turned to their friend Robert Silvers to be its editor along with Epstein's wife, Barbara. The New York Review of Books was a journal dedicated to serious reviewing of books. He had his list of distribution contacts from Anchor Books, and Robert Lowell invested $4,000 from his trust fund to get the company started. The first issue came out on February 1, 1963. It sold out and 2,000 letters arrived urging them to continue. Although he retired in 1999, he continued to be affiliated with the publisher and edited books into his eighties.

In 1979, Epstein took up and forwarded the critic Edmund Wilson's concept for the Library of America, well-made, reliable editions of important American writers similar to the French Pleiade editions. With the support of the Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the first volumes were published in 1982.{{Cite web |title=History and Mission |url=http://www.loa.org/page.jsp?id=201 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150906211746/http://www.loa.org/page.jsp?id=201 |archive-date=September 6, 2015 |access-date=March 30, 2015 |publisher=The Library of America}} He later published The Reader's Catalogue of 40,000 titles available by mail order, an analog precursor of online book selling.{{Cite news |last=Lehmann-Haupt |first=Christopher |date=October 2, 1989 |title=Books of the Times; A Catalogue as Reference and Revolution |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/02/books/books-of-the-times-a-book-catalogue-as-reference-and-revolution.html |url-status=live |access-date=February 9, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171219170313/http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/02/books/books-of-the-times-a-book-catalogue-as-reference-and-revolution.html |archive-date=December 19, 2017}} In 2004, he co-founded On Demand Books, marketer of the Espresso Book Machine, which reproduces a paperback book from a digital file in a few minutes.{{cite news|last=Rose|first=M.J.|title=Twelve-minute Book Delivery|url= https://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2001/07/45228|access-date=September 18, 2013|newspaper=Wired |date=July 17, 2001|df=mdy-all}} Epstein predicted that the Espresso Book Machine will supplant the 500-year-old Gutenberg printing press technology.{{Cite book |last=Epstein |first=Jason |url=https://archive.org/details/bookbusinesspubl00epst_0 |title=Book Business |date=January 2001 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0393049848}}{{Cite news |last=Smith |first=Dinitia |date=January 31, 2001 |title=A Vision for Books That Exults in Happenstance |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/13/books/a-vision-for-books-that-exults-in-happenstance.html?scp=12&sq=Robert%20Denning&st=cse |url-status=live |access-date=February 9, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181022033656/https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/13/books/a-vision-for-books-that-exults-in-happenstance.html?scp=12&sq=Robert%20Denning&st=cse |archive-date=October 22, 2018}}

Epstein was the inaugural recipient of the National Book Award for Distinguished Service to American Letters in 1988.{{Cite book |last=Whalen-Bridge |first=John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wVbFAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA195 |title=Norman Mailer's Later Fictions: Ancient Evenings through Castle in the Forest |date=May 24, 2010 |publisher=Springer |isbn=9780230109056 |page=195}}{{Cite news |date=February 4, 2022 |title=Jason Epstein, publishing editor and innovator, dead at 93 |work=Associated Press |url=https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-business-arts-and-entertainment-new-york-publishing-5b1f80d0b8d1835ceb995b58d422acc5 |url-status=live |access-date=February 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220208192657/https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-business-arts-and-entertainment-new-york-publishing-5b1f80d0b8d1835ceb995b58d422acc5 |archive-date=February 8, 2022}} He was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award of the National Book Critics Circle in 2001,{{Cite web |title=The National Book Critics Circle Award |url=https://www.bookcritics.org/awards/sandrof/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220124132039/https://www.bookcritics.org/awards/sandrof/ |archive-date=January 24, 2022 |access-date=February 8, 2022 |publisher=National Book Critics Circle}} before being conferred the Philolexian Award for Distinguished Literary Achievement six years later. He also received the Curtis Benjamin Award of the Association of American Publishers for Creative Publishing.{{Cite web |title=Jason Epstein |url=https://www.nationalbook.org/people/jason-epstein/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220208192658/https://www.nationalbook.org/people/jason-epstein/ |archive-date=February 8, 2022 |access-date=February 8, 2022 |publisher=National Book Foundation}}

{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?161891-1/book-business-publishing-past-present-future Booknotes interview with Epstein on Book Business: Publishing Past, Present and Future, 2001], C-SPAN}}

His essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, and Condé Nast Traveler, among other publications. He is the author of the following books:

• [https://books.google.com/books?id=X0uTftdQGYIC Book Business: Publishing Past, Present and Future]. W. W. Norton & Company (2001) {{ISBN|978-0393049848}}
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=EwQyEAAAQBA Eating: A Memoir]. A. A. Knopf (2010) {{ISBN|978-1400078257}}
• [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0394727363/ East Hampton: A History and Guide] (with Elizabeth Barlow) Random House (1985) {{ISBN|978-0394727363}}
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=9sjMctIRCkUC The Great Conspiracy Trial: An Essay on Law, Liberty, and the Constitution]. Random House (1970) {{ISBN|978-0394419060}}

In his book, Book Business: Publishing Past, Present, and Future, Epstein writes about working in the New York offices of Random House. He tells of: W. H. Auden delivering the manuscript of The Dyer's Hand in a torn overcoat and slippers; Dr. Seuss reciting Green Eggs and Ham to the staff; Terry Southern writing scenes for Dr. Strangelove on a wooden table in the basement; a diffident Andy Warhol bowing and scraping to Epstein; John O'Hare showing off his Rolls-Royce in the courtyard; and Ralph Ellison smoking a cigar in Epstein's office and using his hands to explain "how Thelonious Monk developed his chords."{{Cite book |last=Epstein |first=Jason |title=Book Business: Publishing Past, Present, and Future |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-393-32234-7 |pages=5–6 |language=en |chapter=The Rattle of Pebbles |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X0uTftdQGYIC&pg=PA5}}

E.L. Doctorow's Billy Bathgate was decidated to Epstein.{{Cite web |title=Jason Epstein: Publishing Icon, Perennial Student | Washington Independent Review of Books |url=https://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/index.php/features/jason-epstein-e2809949-publishing-icon-perennial-student |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221213014430/https://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/index.php/features/jason-epstein-e2809949-publishing-icon-perennial-student |archive-date=December 13, 2022 |access-date=December 13, 2022 |website=www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com}}

Epstein married Barbara Zimmerman in 1954. They met while working at Doubleday, and their fathers knew each other. Together, they had two children: Jacob and Helen. The couple divorced in 1990. Three years later, he married Judith Miller, a reporter for The New York Times and daughter of impresario Bill Miller. They remained married until his death.

Epstein died on February 4, 2022, at his home in Sag Harbor, New York. He was 93, and suffered from congestive heart failure prior to his death.

{{Reflist}}

{{Commons category}}

• [http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/may01/may01_profile_epstein.html "Jason Epstein '49 Looks Back – and Ahead"], Alumni Profile, columbia.edu.
• [http://www.nybooks.com/authors/86 Jacob Epstein |The New York Review of Books] – bibliography of contributed articles
• [https://charlierose.com/videos/14452 Interview with Charlie Rose on e-books and the future of publishing''], January 4, 2001
• [https://charlierose.com/videos/14452 Interview with Charlie Rose about Eating: A Memoir], January 11, 2010
• {{C-SPAN|57932}}
• {{IMDb name|0258476}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Epstein, Jason}}

Category:1928 births

Category:2022 deaths

Category:Writers from Cambridge, Massachusetts

Category:American information and reference writers

Category:American male journalists

Category:Jewish American journalists

Category:American publishers (people)

Category:Columbia College (New York) alumni

Category:The New York Review of Books

Category:Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni

Category:21st-century American Jews