Jason Epstein
Born into a Jewish-American family, Epstein was a 1949 graduate of Columbia College of Columbia University. He married Barbara Zimmerman in 1953 and their marriage lasted 37 years.
Jason Epstein was hired by at Random House, where he was the editorial director for forty years. He was responsible for the Vintage paperbacks, which published such authors as Norman Mailer, Vladimir Nabokov, Gore Vidal, and Philip Roth. In 1952, while an editor at Doubleday, he created the Anchor Books imprint. This was the first of the trade paperback formats, a format which has consistently remained profitable and popular since that time.
During the New York City newspaper strike in 1963, Barbara and Jason Epstein co-founded The New York Review of Books, with Elizabeth Hardwick and Robert Lowell.
He wrote a book entitled Book Business: Publishing Past, Present, and Future. In 1979, he and his brother Zach Epstein were co-founders of the Library of America which was intended to market archival quality editions of American classic literature. The first volumes were published in 1982, and the company now prints about 250,000 volumes per year.
He has been the recipient of the first National Book Award for Distinguished Service to American Letters and the Curtis Benjamin Award of the Association of American Publishers for "inventing new kinds of publishing and editing and The Lifetime Achievement Award of the National Book Critic's Circle."
Jason and Barbara Epstein divorced in 1990. In 1993, Epstein married Judith Miller, a reporter for The New York Times. He created a residence in the former NYC Police Headquarters in SoHo, which was decorated by Robert Denning of Denning & Fourcade.[1][2]
In 2004, he co-founded On Demand Books, the company that markets the Espresso Book Machine.
In 2007 Epstein received the Philolexian Award for Distinguished Literary Achievement.
References
- ↑ "Editorial Statement — Brushing Up Jason Epstein's Downtown Loft", by Judith Thurman, Architectural Digest, March 1995, v. 52 #3, pp. 186-200
- ↑ "A Vision for Books That Exults in Happenstance" by Dinitia Smith January 13, 2001, New York Times online retrieved August 9, 2009
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jason Epstein. |
- Profile at Columbia College site
- Bibliography
- (video) Zacahary M. Epstein interview, Charlie Rose Show, January 11, 2010
- On Demand Books
- Booknotes interview with Epstein on Book Business: Publishing -- Past, Present, and Future, March 18, 2001.
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