Editing Jason Epstein

{{Short description|American editor and publisher (1928–2022)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Jason Epstein
| image              = Jason Epstein 2 NBCC 2011 Shankbone.jpg
| caption            = Epstein in 2011
| birth_name         = Jason Wolkow Epstein
| birth_date         = {{Birth date|1928|08|25|mf=y}}
| birth_place        = [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]], U.S.
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|2022|2|4|1928|8|25|mf=yes}}
| death_place        = [[Sag Harbor, New York]], U.S.
| education          = [[Columbia University]] ([[B. A.|BA]], [[M. A.|MA]])
| occupation         = Editor
| known_for          = 
| parents            = 
| spouse             = {{plainlist|
* {{marriage|[[Barbara Epstein|Barbara Zimmerman]]|1954|1990|end=div.}}
* {{marriage|[[Judith Miller (journalist)|Judith Miller]]|1993}}
}}
| children           = 2
| family             = {{plainlist|
* [[Bill Miller (impresario)|Bill Miller]] (father-in-law)
* [[Jimmy Miller]] (brother-in-law)
}}
}}

'''Jason Wolkow Epstein''' (August 25, 1928 – February 4, 2022) was an American editor and publisher.  He was the editorial director of [[Random House]] from 1976 to 1995.  He also co-founded ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'' in 1963.

==Early life and education==
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.<ref name="NYT obit">{{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}}</ref><ref name="WP obit">{{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}}</ref>  His family was [[American Jews|Jewish]].<ref>{{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}}</ref>  An only child, he attended public schools in [[Milton, Massachusetts|Milton]], Massachusetts, completing high school at age 15.<ref name="NYT obit" />  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.<ref name="NYT obit" /><ref name="WP obit" />

==Career==
After graduating, Epstein joined [[Doubleday (publisher)|Doubleday]] and Company as an editorial trainee,<ref name="Thompson20212">{{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}}</ref> earning $45 a week.<ref name="WP obit" />  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.<ref name=":0">{{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}}</ref><ref>[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.</ref> This was the first so-called Quality Paperbacks, which quickly became the dominant paperback format. In 1954 Anchor Books won the [[Publishers Weekly|Carey–Thomas Award]].<ref>{{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}}</ref>

Epstein left Doubleday in 1958, frustrated at the company's refusal to publish Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel, ''Lolita.''<ref name=":0" /> He joined [[Random House]] publishers, and eventually became editorial director in 1976, serving in that capacity until 1995.<ref name="NYT obit" />  At Random House, he edited such writers as [[Jane Jacobs]], [[Norman Mailer]], [[Philip Roth]], [[Gore Vidal]], [[Vladimir Nabokov]], [[E. L. Doctorow]],<ref name="NYT obit" /> [[Michael Korda]],<ref>{{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}}</ref> [[Benzion Netanyahu]],<ref>{{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}}</ref> [[Peter Matthiessen]],<ref>{{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 …"}}</ref> and [[Paul Kennedy]].<ref>{{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}}</ref> He also worked with Ted Geisel, better known as Dr Seuss, who arrived with storyboards to recite ''"Green Eggs and Ham".''<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" /> Nevertheless, he continued to edit the company's most valuable authors after being relieved of his post as editorial director in 1984.<ref name=":0" />

During the [[New York newspaper strike of 1963]], Epstein, his wife [[Barbara Epstein|Barbara]], and their friends [[Robert Lowell]] and [[Elizabeth Hardwick (writer)|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 B. Silvers|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.<ref name=":0" /> Although he retired in 1999, he continued to be affiliated with the publisher and edited books into his eighties.<ref name="NYT obit" /><ref name="WP obit" />

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 language|French]] [[Pleiade edition]]s. With the support of the [[Ford Foundation]] and the [[National Endowment for the Humanities]], the first volumes were published in 1982.<ref>{{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]]}}</ref> He later published ''The Reader's Catalogue'' of 40,000 titles available by mail order, an analog precursor of online book selling.<ref>{{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}}</ref> 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.<ref name='wired'>{{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 (magazine)|Wired]] |date=July 17, 2001|df=mdy-all}}</ref> Epstein predicted that the Espresso Book Machine will supplant the 500-year-old [[Johannes Gutenberg|Gutenberg]] [[printing press]] technology.<ref>{{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}}</ref><ref>{{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}}</ref><ref name='wired'/>

== Awards ==
Epstein was the inaugural recipient of the [[National Book Award]] for Distinguished Service to American Letters in 1988.<ref name="Whalen-Bridge">{{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}}</ref><ref name="AP">{{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}}</ref>  He was presented with the [[Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award|Lifetime Achievement Award]] of the [[National Book Critics Circle]] in 2001,<ref>{{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}}</ref> before being conferred the [[Philolexian Society|Philolexian Award for Distinguished Literary Achievement]] six years later.<ref name=Whalen-Bridge/>  He also received the Curtis Benjamin Award of the Association of American Publishers for Creative Publishing.<ref>{{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}}</ref>

== Publications ==
{{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#In Europe and the Commonwealth|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."<ref name="Epstein2002">{{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}}</ref>

E.L. Doctorow's [[Billy Bathgate]] was decidated to Epstein.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Jason Epstein: Publishing Icon, Perennial Student &#124; 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}}</ref>

== Personal life==
Epstein married [[Barbara Epstein|Barbara Zimmerman]] in 1954.  They met while working at Doubleday, and their fathers knew each other.<ref name="NYT obit" />  Together, they had two children: Jacob and Helen.  The couple divorced in 1990.  Three years later, he married [[Judith Miller (journalist)|Judith Miller]], a reporter for ''[[The New York Times]]'' and daughter of impresario [[Bill Miller (impresario)|Bill Miller]].  They remained married until his death.<ref name="NYT obit" /><ref name="WP obit" />

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.<ref name="NYT obit" /><ref name="WP obit" />

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{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}}

{{Authority control}}

{{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]]