Early years The New York Review was founded by
Robert B. Silvers and
Barbara Epstein, together with publisher
A. Whitney Ellsworth and writer
Elizabeth Hardwick. They were backed and encouraged by Epstein's husband,
Jason Epstein, a vice president at
Random House and editor of
Vintage Books, and Hardwick's husband, poet
Robert Lowell. In 1959 Hardwick had published an essay, "The Decline of Book Reviewing", in ''
Harper's, where Silvers was then an editor, in a special issue that he edited called "Writing in America". Her essay was an indictment of American book reviews of the time, "light, little article[s]" that she decried as "lobotomized", passionless praise and denounced as "blandly, respectfully denying whatever vivacious interest there might be in books or in literary matters generally." The group was inspired to found a new magazine to publish thoughtful, probing, lively reviews featuring what Hardwick called "the unusual, the difficult, the lengthy, the intransigent, and above all, the interesting''". During the
1962–1963 New York City newspaper strike, when
The New York Times and several other newspapers suspended publication, Hardwick, Lowell and the Epsteins seized the chance to establish the sort of vigorous book review that Hardwick had imagined. Jason Epstein knew that book publishers would advertise their books in the new publication, since they had no other outlet for promoting new books. The group turned to the Epsteins' friend Silvers, who had been an editor at
The Paris Review and was still at ''Harper's
, to edit the publication, and Silvers asked Barbara Epstein to co-edit with him. Silvers and Epstein sent books to "the writers we knew and admired most. ... We asked for three thousand words in three weeks in order to show what a book review should be, and practically everyone came through. No one mentioned money." It prompted nearly 1,000 letters to the editors asking for the Review'' to continue.
Salon later commented that the list of contributors in the first issue "represented a '
shock and awe' demonstration of the intellectual firepower available for deployment in mid-century America, and, almost equally impressive, of the art of editorial networking and jawboning. This was the party everyone who was anyone wanted to attend, the
Black and White Ball of the critical elite." The
Review "announced the arrival of a particular sensibility ... the engaged, literary, post-war progressive intellectual, who was concerned with
civil rights and
feminism as well as fiction and poetry and theater. The first issue projected "a confidence in the unquestioned rightness of the liberal consensus, in the centrality of literature and its power to convey meaning, in the solubility of our problems through the application of intelligence and good will, and in the coherence and clear hierarchy of the intellectual world". The
Review began regular biweekly publication in November 1963. Silvers said of the editors' philosophy, that "there was no subject we couldn't deal with. And if there was no book [on a subject], we would deal with it anyway. We tried hard to avoid books that were simply competent rehearsals of familiar subjects, and we hoped to find books that would establish something fresh, something original." But, Silvers noted, it is a mystery whether "reviews have a calculable political and social impact" or will even gain attention: "You mustn't think too much about influence – if you find something interesting yourself, that should be enough." In 1990 the
Review founded an Italian edition,
la Rivista dei Libri. It was published for two decades until May 2010. For over 40 years, Silvers and Epstein edited the
Review together. who still owns the paper, but the two continued as its editors. In awarding to Epstein and Silvers its 2006 Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community, the
National Book Foundation stated: "With
The New York Review of Books, Robert Silvers and Barbara Epstein raised book reviewing to an art and made the discussion of books a lively, provocative and intellectual activity." After Epstein's death, Silvers was the sole editor until his own death in 2017. Asked about who might succeed him as editor, Silvers told
The New York Times, "I can think of several people who would be marvelous editors. Some of them work here, some used to work here, and some are just people we know. I think they would put out a terrific paper, but it would be different." The 45th anniversary edition of the
Review (November 20, 2008) began with a posthumous piece by
Edmund Wilson, who wrote for the paper's first issue in 1963. In 2010, it launched a blog section of its website that
The New York Times called "lively and opinionated", Asked in 2013 how
social media might affect the subject matter of the
Review, Silvers commented: "I might imagine [a] witty, aphoristic, almost
Oscar Wildean [anthology of] remarks, drawn from the millions and millions of tweets. Or from comments that follow on blogs. ...
Facebook is a medium in which privacy is, or at least is thought to be, in some way crucial. ... And so there seems a resistance to intrusive criticism. We seem at the edge of a vast, expanding ocean of words ... growing without any critical perspective whatever being brought to bear on it. To me, as an editor, that seems an enormous absence."
The Review began a year-long celebration of its 50th anniversary with a presentation by Silvers and several contributors at
The Town Hall in New York City in February 2013. Other events included a program at the New York Public Library in April, called "Literary Journalism: A Discussion", focusing on the editorial process at the
Review and a reception in November at the
Frick Collection. During the year,
Martin Scorsese filmed a documentary about the history and influence of the
Review, and the debates that it has spawned, titled
The 50 Year Argument, which premiered in June 2014 at the
Sheffield Doc/Fest in England. It was later seen at various film festivals, on
BBC television and on
HBO in the US. He left the position in September 2018 after backlash over publishing an essay by
Jian Ghomeshi, who has been accused by 20 women of sexual assault, and defending the publication in an interview with
Slate magazine. The
Review stated that it did not follow its "usual editorial practices", as the essay "was shown to only one male editor during the editing process", and that Buruma's statement to
Slate about the staff of the
Review "did not accurately represent their views". Gabriel Winslow-Yost (formerly a senior editor at the
Review) and
Emily Greenhouse (formerly the managing editor of
The New Yorker and earlier an editorial assistant at the
Review) were named co-editors in February 2019;
Daniel Mendelsohn, a longtime
Review contributor, was named to the new position of "editor at large". In February 2021, Greenhouse was made editor of the
Review, while Winslow-Yost became a senior editor. In 2023, the
Review moved its headquarters to
207 East 32nd Street in
Kips Bay; it had purchased the townhouse in 2020 from graphic designer
Milton Glaser.
Description The
Review has been described as a "kind of magazine ... in which the most interesting and qualified minds of our time would discuss current books and issues in depth ... a literary and critical journal based on the assumption that the discussion of important books was itself an indispensable literary activity." Each issue includes a broad range of subject matter, including "articles on art, science, politics and literature." Early on, the editors decided that the
Review would "be interested in everything ... no subject would be excluded. Someone is writing a piece about Nascar racing for us; another is working on Veronese." Silvers told
The New York Times: "The great political issues of power and its abuses have always been natural questions for us." The
Review also devotes space in most issues to poetry, and has featured the work of such poets as
Robert Lowell,
John Berryman,
Ted Hughes,
John Ashbery,
Richard Wilbur,
Seamus Heaney,
Octavio Paz, and
Czesław Miłosz. For writers, the "depth [of the articles], and the quality of the people writing for it, has made a
Review byline a résumé definer. If one wishes to be thought of as a certain type of writer – of heft, style and a certain gravitas – a
Review byline is pretty much the gold standard." In editing a piece, Silvers said that he asked himself "if [the point in any sentence could] be clearer, while also respecting the writer's voice and tone. You have to listen carefully to the tone of the writer's prose and try to adapt to it, but only up to a point. [No change was made without the writers' permission.] ... Writers deserve the final word about their prose." In the 1980s, a British commentator noted: "In the 1960s [the
Review] opposed American involvement in Vietnam; more recently it has taken a line mildly Keynesian in economics, pro-Israeli but Anti-Zionist, sceptical of
Reagan's Latin-American policy". The British newspaper
The Independent has described the
Review as "the only mainstream American publication to speak out consistently against the war in Iraq". On Middle East coverage, Silvers said, "any serious criticism of Israeli policy will be seen by some as heresy, a form of betrayal. ... [M]uch of what we've published has come from some of the most respected and brilliant Israeli writers ...
Amos Elon,
Avishai Margalit,
David Grossman,
David Shulman, among them. What emerges from them is a sense that occupying land and people year after year can only lead to a sad and bad result." Silvers said: "David combined acute political commentary with a certain kind of joke about the person. He was immensely sensitive to the smallest details – people's shoulders, their feet, their elbows. He was able to find character in these details."
The New York Times described Levine's illustrations as "macro-headed, somberly expressive, astringently probing and hardly ever flattering caricatures of intellectuals and athletes, politicians and potentates" that were "replete with exaggeratedly bad haircuts, 5 o'clock shadows, ill-conceived mustaches and other grooming foibles ... to make the famous seem peculiar-looking in order to take them down a peg". In later years, illustrators for the
Review included James Ferguson of
Financial Times.
The Washington Post described the "lively literary disputes" conducted in the 'letters to the editor' column of the
Review as "the closest thing the intellectual world has to bare-knuckle boxing". One lonely heart, author
Jane Juska, documented the 63 replies to her personal ad in the
Review with a 2003 memoir,
A Round-Heeled Woman, that was
adapted as a play. In
The Washington Post, Matt Schudel called the personal ads "sometimes laughably highbrow" and recalled that they were "spoofed by
Woody Allen in the movie
Annie Hall". Several of the magazine's editorial assistants have become prominent in journalism, academia and literature, including
Jean Strouse,
Deborah Eisenberg,
Mark Danner and
A. O. Scott. Another former intern and a contributor to the
Review, author
Claire Messud, said: "They're incredibly generous about taking the time to go through things. So much of [business today] is about people doing things quickly, with haste. One of the first things to go out the window is a type of graciousness. ... There's a whole sort of rhythm and tone of how they deal with people. I'm sure it was always rare. But it feels incredibly precious now." The
Review has published, since 2009, the
NYR Daily, which focuses on the news. ==Reception==