{"value"=>"<p><span class=\"title\">The New York Review of Books</span> records consist of the working files of the <span class=\"title\">Review</span>'s editors, publishers, and staff since the magazine began publication in 1963. The files of the <span class=\"title\">Review</span>'s founding editors Robert Silvers and Barbara Epstein largely document their work with contributors as they solicited, revised, and sometimes rejected pieces for the <span class=\"title\">Review</span>. The process of proofreading, copy editing, and laying out each issue is documented in the Editorial Files. Finances, circulation, advertising, and other business aspects of the <span class=\"title\">Review</span> are addressed in the collection, primarily in the Administrative Files, but coverage of these subjects is not as comprehensive as the coverage of the editing process.</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p class='list-head'>The New York Review of Books records are arranged in six series:</p>\n<ul class='arrangement series-descriptions'>\n<li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/23385#c1701522'>Series I: Robert B. Silvers Files</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1955-2017</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>The Robert B. Silvers Files date from 1955 to 2016 and chronicle his tenure with <span class=\"title\">The New York Review of Books</span>. The series is grouped into seven categories: Annual Files; Manuscripts; Unsolicited Submissions; Subject Files; Datebooks; Book Projects; and Personal Files. Silvers' email also forms part of the collection but is unprocessed and unavailable at this time.</p> <p>The vast majority of Silvers' files consist of Annual Files, which date from 1963 to 2016. These files provide a glimpse into the subjects, issues, and literature addressed and reviewed throughout the entirety of the <span class=\"title\">Review</span>'s history, and reveal Silvers' editorial process through his letters, handwritten annotations, and comments. The files are arranged chronologically by calendar year and then alphabetically within each year or set of years by personal name, organization or topic. They primarily consist of correspondence with contributors, manuscript drafts annotated by Silvers, memoranda and commentary on editorial matters, files on authors and individuals of interest to Silvers, and research materials consisting of article clippings and essays addressing contemporary political issues. Some files from the 1960s also contain Barbara Epstein's correspondence. A small number of computer files from the 1990s and 2000s are part of the Annual Files. There are very few records for the years 2002 and 2003.</p> <p>Silvers' correspondence with contributors frequently commences with a suggestion that the author write a review of a particular work. This is typically followed up with letters suggesting supplemental works of interest that might assist the author in completing the review. Finally, Silvers sends feedback and suggestions for improving the piece.</p> <p>Silvers sought work from particular writers repeatedly over the years. Some individuals who appear frequently in his files include Neal Ascherson, Ian Buruma, Frederick Crews, Robert Darnton, Joan Didion, Ronald Dworkin, Andrew Hacker, Stuart Hampshire, Elizabeth Hardwick, Francis Haskell, Stanley Hoffmann, Frank Kermode, Conor Cruise O'Brien, Charles Rosen, Oliver Sacks, Amartya Sen, Roger Shattuck, Susan Sontag, Ronald Steel, and Michael Wood.</p> <p>Papers filed under the heading \"Robert B. Silvers\" appear in about half of the years covered by the Annual Files. These contain materials related to the <span class=\"title\">Review</span>'s administrative matters, as well as some personal correspondence, travel information, and documentation of events attended by Silvers. Similarly, items filed as \"<span class=\"title\">New York Review of Books</span>,\" address the magazine's administrative operations, subscription information, and finances.</p> <p>One particularly notable item in the Annual Files is the 1963 folder titled \"Administrative Documents,\" which provides rare insight into the establishment and inaugural year of the <span class=\"title\">Review</span>. Among the documentation found in this folder are minutes from a board of directors meeting, the offering memorandum, a 1963-1964 budget, and estimated financial projections.</p> <p>The Annual Files also contain mailings from the groups and organizations of which Silvers was an active member such as Amnesty International, The Council on Foreign Affairs, the Ditchley Foundation, the New York Public Library, and PEN.</p> <p>The Manuscript Files contain a selection of manuscripts which were filed separately from Annual Files, some of which contain edits and annotations. These are two discrete groups of article drafts, one from the year 1968, and a second from the 1980s to 1999. They typically hold a single manuscript by a contributor, often accompanied by a small amount of correspondence. These files are arranged chronologically and alphabetically within each year, in a manner that is similar to the Annual Files.</p> <p>Unsolicited Submissions date from 1966 to 1999, and contain manuscripts, poems, artwork, and proposals sent to Silvers which were ultimately rejected for publication in the <span class=\"title\">Review</span>. After 1999, additional feedback and comments regarding unsolicited materials can be found within the Annual Files. Some of the materials contain comments by Silvers and his assistants regarding the nature or reasoning for rejecting the piece. Rejection letters can be found throughout the Annual Files as well, but were not always in response to unsolicited pieces.</p> <p>There is a selection of Subject Files dating from 1967 to 1978, which are mostly the names of countries, organizations, and pertinent topics of the time. The files hold articles, clippings, essays, and a small amount of correspondence that do not necessarily pertain to the publication of the magazine in the same manner as the Annual Files.</p> <p>Silvers' datebooks for each year from 1978 to 1999 (with the exception of 1997), and a single book from 1963 record his day-to-day meetings and engagements, both professional and personal, providing a glimpse into his prodigious work schedule. Books from the mid-1980s onward are interfiled with a large amount of loose material including invitations, correspondence, meeting agendas, telegrams, ticket stubs, itineraries, and other documents.</p> <p>The Book Projects files hold records of the <span class=\"title\">Review</span>'s book publishing operations. The five monographs in this series were edited by Silvers, with input from other senior staff. The files are notable for their abundance of material from an edition of Peter Singer's book <span class=\"title\">Animal Liberation</span> (1989). The files contain correspondence and reviews, as well as annotated drafts, galleys, and proofs. The other book projects represented are <span class=\"title\">The Memory Wars: Freud's Legacy in Dispute</span>, by Frederick Crews (1995); <span class=\"title\">The Mystery of Consciousness</span>, by John R. Searle (1995); and the essay collections <span class=\"title\">Hidden Histories of Science</span> (1995), and <span class=\"title\">Writings on the East: Selected Essays on Eastern Europe From The New York Review of Books</span> (1990).</p> <p>The Personal Files date from 1955 to 1982, and consist mostly of correspondence, much of which was composed during Silvers' time as editor at <span class=\"title\">The Paris Review</span> and <span class=\"title\">Harper's Magazine</span>. This correspondence addresses issues pertinent to those publications, and often delves into the personal lives of numerous literary figures, as well as their friends and associates. Correspondents include Donald Hall, Nat Hentoff, Christopher Logue, Michel Mohrt, George Plimpton, Alan Pryce-Jones, Philip Roth, Kenneth Tynan, and Richard Wollheim.</p> <p>The Personal Files also contain an annotated draft of Stanislaus Joyce's <span class=\"title\">An Open Letter to Dr. Oliver Gogarty</span> from 1951, along with documentation and correspondence regarding the publishing house, Editions Finistérre. Files dated after 1963 typically hold correspondence between Silvers and his close relatives.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/23385#c1460462'>Series II: Barbara Epstein Files</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1961-2006</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>140.88 linear feet (335 boxes); 5250 kilobytes (51 computer files)</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>The Barbara Epstein Files date from 1961 to 2006 (bulk 1971-2001) and contain correspondence, manuscripts, clippings and articles, and a small amount of administrative materials pertaining to <span class=\"title\">The New York Review of Books</span>. The series is arranged in two categories: Annual Files and Unsolicited Submissions.</p> <p>Annual Files comprise the majority of the series and are arranged chronologically, then alphabetically by personal name, organizational name, or topic. The files contain manuscripts by and correspondence with contributors to the magazine, as well as clippings and other reference material about current events, writers, and recently-published books. The majority of these materials are in paper format, with a small amount held on electronic media. The files primarily date from 1971 to 2001, with some materials from the 1960s and 1970, one file from 2003, and email dating from 2000 to 2006. Email is not currently available to view. Some of Epstein's correspondence from the 1960s is filed in Robert B. Silvers' Annual Files in Series I.</p> <p>Miscellaneous files are held at the end of the alphabetical run for each year. Correspondence, notes, and other materials relating to Robert Silvers are filed under \"Bob.\" Files from the 1960s and 1970s chiefly contain correspondence, with very few manuscripts; whereas files from 1980 to 2001 frequently contain multiple drafts of a submitted manuscript.</p> <p>Manuscripts consist of articles, poems, and book chapters submitted for publication to the <span class=\"title\">Review</span>; some have Epstein's editing marks and comments. Contributors who are well-represented in the files include Darryl Pinckney, Diane Johnson, Robert Craft, Nicholas Lemann, Václav Havel, David Remnick, Pankaj Mishra, Sarah Kerr, Janet Malcolm, Gore Vidal, and Murray Kempton. Correspondence concerns reviews in progress or proposed reviews, and many of Epstein's outgoing letters are brief notes on copies of book covers that she was sending to potential reviewers. The files sometimes contain letters to the editor about specific reviews, with reviewers' responses.</p> <p>Epstein's Annual Files also contain papers pertaining to <span class=\"title\">New York Review</span> advertising, circulation, and subscribers (Epstein filed these under either <span class=\"title\">New York Review of Books</span> or NYREV, Inc.). Researchers interested in <span class=\"title\">Reader's Catalog</span>, Reader's Subscription, and other NYREV book clubs should consult those files in addition to NYREV, Inc. files. Epstein's personal files, filed under her name, contain ephemera from her personal life, biographical material, and some correspondence and manuscripts related to her work at the <span class=\"title\">Review</span>.</p> <p>Unsolicited Submissions are arranged chronologically and consist of rejected manuscripts and proposals dating from 1969 to 2001. The unsolicited manuscripts rarely have annotations from Epstein, though they are occasionally accompanied by comments from one of Epstein's editorial assistants. Rejected unsolicited manuscripts and proposals can also be found throughout the Annual Files, especially in the general letter files (e.g. \"A\").</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/23385#c1460477'>Series III: Editorial Files</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1963-2017</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>405.21 linear feet (965 boxes); 14.9 gigabytes (19,342 computer files)</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>The Editorial series contains manuscripts and galley proofs of reviews, poems, tables of contents, contributor biographies, and letters to the editor that were published in <span class=\"title\">The New York Review of Books</span> from 1973 onward. There are multiple versions of most published reviews, often marked with minor revisions and notes by <span class=\"title\">Review</span> staff during the copy editing, proofreading, and fact-checking process. The series also contains a small amount of editorial correspondence from the 1960s; a small number of unpublished manuscripts, mostly from the 1970s; and files of letters to the editor.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/23385#c1463191'>Series IV: Administrative Files</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1960-2003</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>21.88 linear feet (52 boxes, 1 oversized folder)</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series consists mainly of files created and collected by A. Whitney Ellsworth in his capacity as the first publisher of <span class=\"title\">The New York Review of Books</span> from 1963 to 1986. There are also some files created by associate publisher Catherine Tice, business manager Raymond Shapiro and other <span class=\"title\">Review</span> employees. These files document the logistics of founding, managing, publishing, selling, and distributing the Review. Subjects covered in these files include: promotion of books by <span class=\"title\">Review</span> authors, magazine sales, advertising, computer purchasing and training, <span class=\"title\">The London Review of Books</span> and other European partner organizations, mailing list security, lawsuits, privacy concerns, and the 1984 sale of the <span class=\"title\">Review</span> to Rea Hederman. Materials include business correspondence, sales reports, circulation reports, subscription reports, press releases, clippings, budgets, sales projections, analyses of financial data, contracts, invoices, agreements, shareholder reports, investor files, manuscripts, articles of association, conference materials, meeting minutes, office and storage space leases, files on advertisers, royalty statements, notes, and phone memos. Ledgers, dating from 1968-1986, document the financial history of the <span class=\"title\">Review</span>. Ledgers provide data on expenses, profits, and sales. They also include reports analyzing this data. The series also contains printing negatives from selected issues of the <span class=\"title\">Review</span>.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/23385#c1463415'>Series V: La Rivista dei Libri Records</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1989-2001</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>4.17 linear feet (10 boxes)</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>The <span class=\"title\">La Rivista dei Libri</span> records contain Correspondence, Issue Files, and Reports on Submissions. Correspondence consists of letters, clippings, and other publicity materials pertaining to the establishment of the <span class=\"title\">Rivista</span>; daily correspondence and faxes, dating from 1992 to 1995; letters between <span class=\"title\">New York Review of Books</span> staff including Pablo Conrad, Raymond Shapiro, and editor Robert Silvers in New York; and the <span class=\"title\">Rivista</span> staff in Florence, including Marica Corsi, Pietro Corsi, and Anna Paola. There is also correspondence with Joan B. Sax, John Shepley, and various translators. Issue Files consist mainly of drafts of articles to be published in the <span class=\"title\">Rivista</span>, covering two periods in the <span class=\"title\">Rivista</span>'s history: 1991 to 1992 and 2000 to 2001. Also included here are typed reports from <span class=\"title\">Rivista</span> staff on articles submitted for publication between 1990 and 1995.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/23385#c1702551'>Series VI: Post-Silvers Era Files</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>2017-2019</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series consists of all Annual Files dated after Silvers' death; he remained editor of the <span class=\"title\">Review</span> until shortly before his death.</p> <p>Because of the shortness of Buruma's editorial tenure and the periods of time in which there was no officially named editor, these materials have been combined into one overarching series.</p> <p>The contents of these files are similar to those in Silvers' series, consisting of correspondence with authors mostly on the subject of potential books to review and manuscripts with annotations. The arrangement also mirrors that of the Silvers series, with files arranged chronologically by calendar year and then alphabetically within each year or set of years by personal name, organization or topic. Many of these files include content that was edited by Silvers before his 2017 death and they are included here based on the latest date of material in the files. Papers filed under \"Ian Buruma\" also appear, consisting of materials relating to the <span class=\"title\">Review</span>'s administration matters.</p></div></li></ul>\n", "type"=>"arrangement"}