{"value"=>"<p>Robert Benjamin Silvers (1923-2017) was a co-founder of <span class=\"title\">The New York Review of Books</span> and served as the magazine's editor for 54 years.</p> <p>Silvers was born and raised on Long Island, New York, and earned a Bachelor's degree at the University of Chicago in 1947. After graduation, Silvers briefly attended Yale Law School, and worked as Press Secretary to Connecticut Governor, Chester Bowles. In 1952, Silvers was sent to Paris by the United States Army, where he was employed as a speechwriter and press aide. Silvers pursued studies at the Sorbonne, and upon his discharge from the Army in 1954, was hired by George Plimpton to be the managing editor at <span class=\"title\">The Paris Review</span>. Silvers returned to the United States in 1958, and took a position as associate editor at <span class=\"title\">Harper's Magazine</span>, a job he held until 1963.</p> <p>In 1963, Barbara and Jason Epstein, Elizabeth Hardwick, and Robert Lowell invited Silvers to co-edit the inaugural issue of the <span class=\"title\">Review</span> with Barbara Epstein. They continued their collaboration as co-editors until Epstein's death in 2006 when Silvers became sole editor. He was known throughout his career for working long hours and paying meticulous attention to detail. Silvers befriended numerous authors and intellectuals and repeatedly called upon them to contribute to the <span class=\"title\">Review</span>. Some of his notable literary associates include, Gabriele and Noel Annan, Ian Buruma, Robert Darnton, Joan Didion, Simon Head, Avishai Margalit, Mary McCarthy, Philip Roth, Peter Singer, and Susan Sontag.</p> <p>Silvers was widely respected and frequently recognized for making the <span class=\"title\">Review</span> one of America's leading journals of intellectual discourse. He received a fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was awarded the National Humanities Medal; <span class=\"title\">The Paris Review</span>'s Hadada Prize; the National Book Critics Circle's Ivan Sandrof Award for Lifetime Achievement in Publishing; and honorary degrees from Harvard University, Columbia University, Oxford University, and Bard College. Silvers edited the <span class=\"title\">Review</span> until his death in March of 2017.</p>"}
{"value"=>"<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>"}