Sol Stein
Encyclopedia
Sol Stein is the author of 13 books and was Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Stein and Day
Publishers for 27 years.
, Stein wrote his first book, "Magic Maestro Please," followed shortly by "Patriotic Magic." Stein attended DeWitt Clinton High School
, where he served on the Magpie literary magazine with Richard Avedon
and James Baldwin
. He graduated in 1942 and enrolled at CCNY, which then provided a free education.
Between the time of Stein’s enlistment in the Army Air Corps
in 1944 and being called to active duty on March 1, 1945, Stein had completed nearly three years of infantry ROTC at CCNY. After qualifying for pilot and bombardier training, a backlog of pilots caused Stein to voluntarily transfer to the infantry. Overseas, he served as an Information & Education officer in the Headquarters of the 1st Infantry Division (United States) in Germany as Commandant of Division Schools, located in three cities, Regensburg
, Ansbach
, and Triesdorf. On 5 November 1946 Stein was cited by Lt. General Geoffrey Keyes
for having organized and commanded the best occupational training schools in the Third Army Area in the American Zone of Germany.
Upon returning from Europe in 1946, Stein completed work for his degree at CCNY and simultaneously with his graduation in 1948 was employed at the college as a lecturer in social studies. While teaching, he took his Master’s degree in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University
in 1949 and was accepted for the famed doctoral seminar conducted jointly by Lionel Trilling
and Jacques Barzun
, both of whose writings Stein was to later to edit.
, eventually as senior editor of the Ideological Advisory Staff of the Voice of America. He wrote daily scripts that were translated into 46 languages and broadcast to two million people risking their lives listening behind the Iron Curtain
. It was at the Voice that Stein’s association with Bertram Wolfe
began; Stein was instrumental in causing the re-publication of Wolfe’s masterpiece, Three Who Made a Revolution, which had been allowed to go out of print. The book subsequently sold half a million copies in a few years and was adopted in almost all Soviet Studies programs in the U.S. and elsewhere.
In 1953 Stein, a centrist, was appointed Executive Director of the American Committee for Cultural Freedom
, an organization of 300 leading American intellectuals of left and right working together in support of civil liberties and battling Senator Joseph McCarthy
in the U.S. and Soviet propaganda and influence among intellectuals in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. It was in this period that the eventual publisher supervised the writing and publication of McCarthy and the Communists, which made The New York Times Bestseller List for 13 weeks and was credited with contributing to the unseating of Senator McCarthy.
, an artists’ colony, and the MacDowell Colony
.
At MacDowell, Stein completed his first play, Napoleon, under the watchful eye of Thornton Wilder
, a fellow at the same time. The verse drama was produced the following year by the New Dramatists organization at the ANTA Theater in New York and was chosen by the Dramatists Alliance as “the best full length play of 1953.”
Stein completed a second play, A Shadow of My Enemy, originally intended as an adaptation of Whittaker Chambers
' best-selling memoir, Witness (1952), but, when denied rights, based on public record and published in 1957. The play, whose synopsis runs "A senior editor of Time magazine accuses his closest friend of being a Communist," was originally commissioned by the Theater Guild and subsequently produced on Broadway by Roger Stevens
, Alfred deLiagre Jr., and Hume Cronyn
. The cast starred Ed Begley
and Gene Raymond
.
In the early 1950s, Stein and Elia Kazan
formed a friendship that was cemented in 1955 when Stein served as the production observer from first reading to opening night of the Tennessee Williams
play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
, which won the Pulitzer Prize
for drama that year. Stein’s play A Shadow of My Enemy was produced in 1957 by Roger Stevens, Alfred deLiagre, Jr.and Hume Cronyn at the National Theater in Washington and the ANTA theatre on Broadway in New York starring Ed Begley and Gene Raymond. In 1957 Stein was one of 10 founding members of the Playwrights Group at the Actors Studio
in New York with William Inge
, Tennessee Williams
, Lorraine Hansberry
, and others.
From 1957-1959 Stein served for two and a half years as Managing Editor of the Executive Membership Division of the Research Institute of America.
in Boston. Melvin Arnold, director of the Beacon Press appointed Stein as General Editor of Beacon’s Contemporary Affairs Series in the book size trade paperback format developed by Stein. Working as a freelance contractor, Stein’s first list for Beacon included Three Who Made a Revolution by Bertram Wolfe
, Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
, The Century of Total War by Raymond Aron
, An End to Innocence by Leslie Fiedler
, The Need for Roots by Simone Weil
, The Hero in History by Sidney Hook
, Social Darwinism in American Thought by Richard Hofstadter
, and The Invisible Writing by Arthur Koestler
.
The format developed by Stein is half a century later the dominant form in which books are published.
Sol Stein edited the classic work Notes of a Native Son
by James Baldwin
, selected as #19 of the “100 best nonfiction books of the 20th century;” Elia Kazan’s America America; and Lionel Trilling
’s Freud and the Crisis of Our Culture. He was also responsible for the continued publication of Bertram D. Wolfe’s The Fabulous Life of Diego Rivera and George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, selected as #42 of the 100 best nonfiction books of the 20th century.
In 1959 Lionel Trilling
, Jacques Barzun
, W. H. Auden
and Sol Stein launched The Mid-Century Book Society, an upscale book club, which was an immediate success.
The firm relocated from Manhattan
to Briarcliff Manor, New York
in 1975, and published about 100 books each year until the company was compelled to close its doors, the background of which was the subject of Stein’s nonfiction book, A Feast for Lawyers. The New York Times said, “He has produced an appalling, Dickensian portrait of the entire system...ought to be read not only by executives facing Chapter 11 but by all entrepreneurs and indeed by anyone who fantasizes about running his own company." Stein’s book was honored by The American Bankruptcy Association at its annual convention in Washington, D.C. Columbia University
now hosts the Stein and Day Archives, which chronicles the firm’s 27 years of existence. Stein and Day was the originating publisher of works by Leslie Fiedler
, David Frost
, Jack Higgins
, Dylan Thomas
, Budd Schulberg
, Claude Brown
, Bertram Wolfe
, Mary Cheever, Harry Lorayne
, Barbara Howar, Elaine Morgan
, Wanda Landowska
, Marilyn Monroe
, Oliver Lange, and F. Lee Bailey, among others. Stein and Day was also the American publisher of J. B. Priestley
, Eric Partridge
, Anthony Sampson
, Maxim Gorky
, Che Guevara
, L. P. Hartley
, and George Bernard Shaw
.
. Members of the Montello School board, in their association with Christian right groups and, some allege, anti-Semitic right-wing hate groups, rallied to have the book banned not only at their high school but at schools throughout the country. The head of the English Department and the school administration opposed the book banning and launched a campaign for public support. In the end, the school board members responsible for the book banning proposal were not only overruled but removed from the school board. Stein later sent every resident of the town of 1100 a copy of the book. The controversy attracted national media attention and was for a time regarded as a marquee victory for free speech advocates.
The Magician, Delacorte, 1971, Dell, 1972. Selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club. British Commonwealth: Michael Joseph, Mayflower. Translated into French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Russian. Film rights to Twentieth-Century Fox. Screenplay by Sol Stein.
Living Room, Arbor House, 1974, Bantam, 1975. The Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club. British Commonwealth: The Bodley Head, New English Library. Translated into French, German (2 editions), Italian, Japanese.
The Childkeeper, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975, Dell, 1976. British Commonwealth: Collins, Fontana. Translated into German, Spanish. German language TV motion picture released
Other People, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980, Dell, 1981. British Commonwealth: Collins, Fontana. French, German, Italian (3 editions), Greek.
The Resort, Morrow, 1981, Dell, 1982. British Commonwealth: Collins, Fontana. Translated into Russian. Motion picture rights optioned (twice).
The Touch of Treason, Marek/St. Martin's Press, 1985, Berkley, 1986. British Commonwealth: Macmillan. Translated into German, Greek, Swedish, Norwegian.
A Deniable Man, McGraw-Hill, April, 1989. Translated into German.
The Best Revenge, Random House, 1991.
Stein on Writing, St. Martin’s Press, 1995 hardback, 2000 paperback; British Commonwealth under the title Solutions for Writers, Souvenir Press. German edition, Zweitausendeins.
How to Grow a Novel, St. Martin’s Press, 1999, British Commonwealth under the title Solutions for Novelists, Souvenir Press, 2000, in German, Zweitausendeins 2000.
A Shadow of My Enemy, produced by Roger Stevens, Hume Cronyn
, and Alfred DeLiagre, ANTA Theater, 1957, starring Ed Begley
and Gene Raymond
The Magician, screenplay, 20th Century Fox
Stein and Day
Stein and Day, Inc. was an American publishing company founded by Sol Stein and his wife Patricia Day in 1962. Stein was both the publisher and the editor-in-chief...
Publishers for 27 years.
Early life
Born in Chicago on October 13, 1926, Stein is the son of Louis Stein and Zelda Zam Stein. The family moved to New York in 1930. In 1941, while living in the BronxThe Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
, Stein wrote his first book, "Magic Maestro Please," followed shortly by "Patriotic Magic." Stein attended DeWitt Clinton High School
DeWitt Clinton High School
DeWitt Clinton High School is an American high school located in the Bronx, New York City, New York.-History:Clinton opened in 1897 at 60 West 13th Street at the northern end of Greenwich Village under the name of Boys High School, although this Boys High School was not related to the one in Brooklyn...
, where he served on the Magpie literary magazine with Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon was an American photographer. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century."-Photography career:Avedon was born in New York City to a Jewish Russian...
and James Baldwin
James Baldwin (writer)
James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic.Baldwin's essays, for instance "Notes of a Native Son" , explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th century America,...
. He graduated in 1942 and enrolled at CCNY, which then provided a free education.
Between the time of Stein’s enlistment in the Army Air Corps
United States Army Air Corps
The United States Army Air Corps was a forerunner of the United States Air Force. Renamed from the Air Service on 2 July 1926, it was part of the United States Army and the predecessor of the United States Army Air Forces , established in 1941...
in 1944 and being called to active duty on March 1, 1945, Stein had completed nearly three years of infantry ROTC at CCNY. After qualifying for pilot and bombardier training, a backlog of pilots caused Stein to voluntarily transfer to the infantry. Overseas, he served as an Information & Education officer in the Headquarters of the 1st Infantry Division (United States) in Germany as Commandant of Division Schools, located in three cities, Regensburg
Regensburg
Regensburg is a city in Bavaria, Germany, located at the confluence of the Danube and Regen rivers, at the northernmost bend in the Danube. To the east lies the Bavarian Forest. Regensburg is the capital of the Bavarian administrative region Upper Palatinate...
, Ansbach
Ansbach
Ansbach, originally Onolzbach, is a town in Bavaria, Germany. It is the capital of the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Ansbach is situated southwest of Nuremberg and north of Munich, on the Fränkische Rezat, a tributary of the Main river. As of 2004, its population was 40,723.Ansbach...
, and Triesdorf. On 5 November 1946 Stein was cited by Lt. General Geoffrey Keyes
Geoffrey Keyes
-External links:...
for having organized and commanded the best occupational training schools in the Third Army Area in the American Zone of Germany.
Upon returning from Europe in 1946, Stein completed work for his degree at CCNY and simultaneously with his graduation in 1948 was employed at the college as a lecturer in social studies. While teaching, he took his Master’s degree in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in 1949 and was accepted for the famed doctoral seminar conducted jointly by Lionel Trilling
Lionel Trilling
Lionel Trilling was an American literary critic, author, and teacher. With wife Diana Trilling, he was a member of the New York Intellectuals and contributor to the Partisan Review. Although he did not establish a school of literary criticism, he is one of the leading U.S...
and Jacques Barzun
Jacques Barzun
Jacques Martin Barzun is a French-born American historian of ideas and culture. He has written on a wide range of topics, but is perhaps best known as a philosopher of education, his Teacher in America being a strong influence on post-WWII training of schoolteachers in the United...
, both of whose writings Stein was to later to edit.
Script writer for the Voice of America
From 1951 to 1953 Stein was employed by the Voice of AmericaVoice of America
Voice of America is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. It is one of five civilian U.S. international broadcasters working under the umbrella of the Broadcasting Board of Governors . VOA provides a wide range of programming for broadcast on radio...
, eventually as senior editor of the Ideological Advisory Staff of the Voice of America. He wrote daily scripts that were translated into 46 languages and broadcast to two million people risking their lives listening behind the Iron Curtain
Iron Curtain
The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
. It was at the Voice that Stein’s association with Bertram Wolfe
Bertram Wolfe
Bertram David "Bert" Wolfe was an American scholar and former communist best known for biographical studies of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, and Diego Rivera.-Early life:...
began; Stein was instrumental in causing the re-publication of Wolfe’s masterpiece, Three Who Made a Revolution, which had been allowed to go out of print. The book subsequently sold half a million copies in a few years and was adopted in almost all Soviet Studies programs in the U.S. and elsewhere.
In 1953 Stein, a centrist, was appointed Executive Director of the American Committee for Cultural Freedom
American Committee for Cultural Freedom
The American Committee for Cultural Freedom was the U.S. affiliate of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an organization that, during the Cold War, sought to encourage intellectuals to be critical of the Soviet Union and Communism, and to combat, according to a writer for the New York Times, "the...
, an organization of 300 leading American intellectuals of left and right working together in support of civil liberties and battling Senator Joseph McCarthy
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...
in the U.S. and Soviet propaganda and influence among intellectuals in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. It was in this period that the eventual publisher supervised the writing and publication of McCarthy and the Communists, which made The New York Times Bestseller List for 13 weeks and was credited with contributing to the unseating of Senator McCarthy.
Playwright
In 1952 Stein was granted a leave of absence from the Voice of America to accept back-to-back fellowships at YaddoYaddo
Yaddo is an artists' community located on a 400 acre estate in Saratoga Springs, New York. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment."...
, an artists’ colony, and the MacDowell Colony
MacDowell Colony
The MacDowell Colony is an art colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, U.S.A., founded in 1907 by Marian MacDowell, pianist and wife of composer Edward MacDowell. She established the institution and its endowment chiefly with donated funds...
.
At MacDowell, Stein completed his first play, Napoleon, under the watchful eye of Thornton Wilder
Thornton Wilder
Thornton Niven Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He received three Pulitzer Prizes, one for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and two for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and a National Book Award for his novel The Eighth Day.-Early years:Wilder was born in Madison,...
, a fellow at the same time. The verse drama was produced the following year by the New Dramatists organization at the ANTA Theater in New York and was chosen by the Dramatists Alliance as “the best full length play of 1953.”
Stein completed a second play, A Shadow of My Enemy, originally intended as an adaptation of Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers was born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker Chambers , was an American writer and editor. After being a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent later testifying in the perjury and espionage trial...
' best-selling memoir, Witness (1952), but, when denied rights, based on public record and published in 1957. The play, whose synopsis runs "A senior editor of Time magazine accuses his closest friend of being a Communist," was originally commissioned by the Theater Guild and subsequently produced on Broadway by Roger Stevens
Roger L. Stevens
Roger Lacey Stevens was an American theatrical producer, arts administrator, and a real estate executive. He is the founding Chairman of both the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts , and National Endowment for the Arts .Born in Detroit, Michigan, Stevens was educated at The Choate School in...
, Alfred deLiagre Jr., and Hume Cronyn
Hume Cronyn
Hume Blake Cronyn, OC was a Canadian actor of stage and screen, who enjoyed a long career, often appearing professionally alongside his second wife, Jessica Tandy.-Early life:...
. The cast starred Ed Begley
Ed Begley
Edward James Begley, Sr. was an Academy Award-winning American actor.-Biography:Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Begley began his career as a Broadway and radio actor while in his teens. He appeared in the hit musical Going Up on Broadway in 1917 and in London the next year. He later acted in...
and Gene Raymond
Gene Raymond
Gene Raymond was an American film, television, and stage actor of the 1930s and 1940s. In addition to acting, Raymond was also a composer, writer, director, producer, and decorated military pilot.-Stage and movie career:...
.
In the early 1950s, Stein and Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan was an American director and actor, described by the New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". Born in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, to Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia, the family emigrated...
formed a friendship that was cemented in 1955 when Stein served as the production observer from first reading to opening night of the Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a play by Tennessee Williams. One of Williams's best-known works and his personal favorite, the play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955...
, which won the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
for drama that year. Stein’s play A Shadow of My Enemy was produced in 1957 by Roger Stevens, Alfred deLiagre, Jr.and Hume Cronyn at the National Theater in Washington and the ANTA theatre on Broadway in New York starring Ed Begley and Gene Raymond. In 1957 Stein was one of 10 founding members of the Playwrights Group at the Actors Studio
Actors Studio
The Actors Studio is a membership organization for professional actors, theatre directors and playwrights at 432 West 44th Street in the Clinton neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded October 5, 1947, by Elia Kazan, Cheryl Crawford, Robert Lewis and Anna Sokolow who provided...
in New York with William Inge
William Inge
William Motter Inge was an American playwright and novelist, whose works typically feature solitary protagonists encumbered with strained sexual relations. In the early 1950s, he had a string of memorable Broadway productions, and one of these, Picnic, earned him a Pulitzer Prize...
, Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
, Lorraine Hansberry
Lorraine Hansberry
Lorraine Hansberry was an African American playwright and author of political speeches, letters, and essays...
, and others.
From 1957-1959 Stein served for two and a half years as Managing Editor of the Executive Membership Division of the Research Institute of America.
Editor and publisher
In 1953 Stein edited and supervised the publication of McCarthy and the Communists by James Rorty and Moshe Decter for the Beacon PressBeacon Press
Beacon Press is an American non-profit book publisher. Founded in 1854 by the American Unitarian Association, it is currently a department of the Unitarian Universalist Association.Beacon Press is a member of the Association of American University Presses....
in Boston. Melvin Arnold, director of the Beacon Press appointed Stein as General Editor of Beacon’s Contemporary Affairs Series in the book size trade paperback format developed by Stein. Working as a freelance contractor, Stein’s first list for Beacon included Three Who Made a Revolution by Bertram Wolfe
Bertram Wolfe
Bertram David "Bert" Wolfe was an American scholar and former communist best known for biographical studies of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, and Diego Rivera.-Early life:...
, Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
, The Century of Total War by Raymond Aron
Raymond Aron
Raymond-Claude-Ferdinand Aron was a French philosopher, sociologist, journalist and political scientist.He is best known for his 1955 book The Opium of the Intellectuals, the title of which inverts Karl Marx's claim that religion was the opium of the people -- in contrast, Aron argued that in...
, An End to Innocence by Leslie Fiedler
Leslie Fiedler
Leslie Aaron Fiedler was a Jewish-American literary critic, known for his interest in mythography and his championing of genre fiction. His work also involves application of psychological theories to American literature. He was in practical terms one of the early postmodernist critics working...
, The Need for Roots by Simone Weil
Simone Weil
Simone Weil , was a French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist.-Biography:Weil was born in Paris to Alsatian agnostic Jewish parents who fled the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany. She grew up in comfortable circumstances, and her father was a doctor. Her only sibling was...
, The Hero in History by Sidney Hook
Sidney Hook
Sidney Hook was an American pragmatic philosopher known for his contributions to public debates.A student of John Dewey, Hook continued to examine the philosophy of history, of education, politics, and of ethics. After embracing Marxism in his youth, Hook was known for his criticisms of...
, Social Darwinism in American Thought by Richard Hofstadter
Richard Hofstadter
Richard Hofstadter was an American public intellectual of the 1950s, a historian and DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University...
, and The Invisible Writing by Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler CBE was a Hungarian author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria...
.
The format developed by Stein is half a century later the dominant form in which books are published.
Sol Stein edited the classic work Notes of a Native Son
Notes of a Native Son
Notes of a Native Son is a non-fiction book by James Baldwin. It was Baldwin's first non-fiction book, and was published in 1955. The volume collects ten of Baldwin's essays, which had previously appeared in such magazines as Harper's Magazine, Partisan Review, and The New Leader...
by James Baldwin
James Baldwin (writer)
James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic.Baldwin's essays, for instance "Notes of a Native Son" , explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th century America,...
, selected as #19 of the “100 best nonfiction books of the 20th century;” Elia Kazan’s America America; and Lionel Trilling
Lionel Trilling
Lionel Trilling was an American literary critic, author, and teacher. With wife Diana Trilling, he was a member of the New York Intellectuals and contributor to the Partisan Review. Although he did not establish a school of literary criticism, he is one of the leading U.S...
’s Freud and the Crisis of Our Culture. He was also responsible for the continued publication of Bertram D. Wolfe’s The Fabulous Life of Diego Rivera and George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, selected as #42 of the 100 best nonfiction books of the 20th century.
In 1959 Lionel Trilling
Lionel Trilling
Lionel Trilling was an American literary critic, author, and teacher. With wife Diana Trilling, he was a member of the New York Intellectuals and contributor to the Partisan Review. Although he did not establish a school of literary criticism, he is one of the leading U.S...
, Jacques Barzun
Jacques Barzun
Jacques Martin Barzun is a French-born American historian of ideas and culture. He has written on a wide range of topics, but is perhaps best known as a philosopher of education, his Teacher in America being a strong influence on post-WWII training of schoolteachers in the United...
, W. H. Auden
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...
and Sol Stein launched The Mid-Century Book Society, an upscale book club, which was an immediate success.
Stein and Day
In 1962 Stein founded the New York-based publishing firm Stein and Day with his then-wife, Patricia Day. Stein was both publisher and editor-in-chief of the firm. The publishing house’s first book was Elia Kazan’s America America, which sold three million copies in hardback, paperback, and book club editions. The success of many of Stein and Day’s books was attributable in part to the amount of publicity work that Stein and Day did for each book Stein worked with Kazan daily for five months on Kazan’s s first novel The Arrangement, which was #1 on The New York Times bestseller list for 37 consecutive weeks.The firm relocated from Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
to Briarcliff Manor, New York
Briarcliff Manor, New York
Briarcliff Manor is a village in Westchester County in the state of New York. It is shared between the towns of Mount Pleasant and Ossining, and lies entirely within the ZIP code of 10510...
in 1975, and published about 100 books each year until the company was compelled to close its doors, the background of which was the subject of Stein’s nonfiction book, A Feast for Lawyers. The New York Times said, “He has produced an appalling, Dickensian portrait of the entire system...ought to be read not only by executives facing Chapter 11 but by all entrepreneurs and indeed by anyone who fantasizes about running his own company." Stein’s book was honored by The American Bankruptcy Association at its annual convention in Washington, D.C. Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
now hosts the Stein and Day Archives, which chronicles the firm’s 27 years of existence. Stein and Day was the originating publisher of works by Leslie Fiedler
Leslie Fiedler
Leslie Aaron Fiedler was a Jewish-American literary critic, known for his interest in mythography and his championing of genre fiction. His work also involves application of psychological theories to American literature. He was in practical terms one of the early postmodernist critics working...
, David Frost
David Frost
Sir David Frost is a British broadcaster.David Frost may also refer to:*David Frost , South African golfer*David Frost , classical record producer*David Frost *Dave Frost, baseball pitcher...
, Jack Higgins
Jack Higgins
Jack Higgins is the principal pseudonym of UK novelist Harry Patterson. Patterson is the author of more than 60 novels. As Higgins, most have been thrillers of various types and, since his breakthrough novel The Eagle Has Landed in 1975, nearly all have been bestsellers...
, Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2008. who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself...
, Budd Schulberg
Budd Schulberg
Budd Schulberg was an American screenwriter, television producer, novelist and sports writer. He was known for his 1941 novel, What Makes Sammy Run?, his 1947 novel The Harder They Fall, his 1954 Academy-award-winning screenplay for On the Waterfront, and his 1957 screenplay for A Face in the...
, Claude Brown
Claude Brown
Claude Brown is the author ofManchild in the Promised Land, published to critical acclaim in 1965, which tells the story of his coming of age during the 1940s and 1950s in Harlem...
, Bertram Wolfe
Bertram Wolfe
Bertram David "Bert" Wolfe was an American scholar and former communist best known for biographical studies of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, and Diego Rivera.-Early life:...
, Mary Cheever, Harry Lorayne
Harry Lorayne
Harry Lorayne is an American magician and a memory-training specialist and writer who was once called "The Yoda of Memory Training" by Time magazine. He is well known for his mnemonic demonstrations and has appeared on numerous television shown including The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson...
, Barbara Howar, Elaine Morgan
Elaine Morgan (writer)
Elaine Morgan OBE is a Welsh writer for television and also the author of several books on evolutionary anthropology, especially the aquatic ape hypothesis: The Descent of Woman, The Aquatic Ape, The Scars of Evolution, The Descent of the Child, The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, and The Naked Darwinist...
, Wanda Landowska
Wanda Landowska
Wanda Landowska was a Polish harpsichordist whose performances, teaching, recordings and writings played a large role in reviving the popularity of the harpsichord in the early 20th century...
, Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
, Oliver Lange, and F. Lee Bailey, among others. Stein and Day was also the American publisher of J. B. Priestley
J. B. Priestley
John Boynton Priestley, OM , known as J. B. Priestley, was an English novelist, playwright and broadcaster. He published 26 novels, notably The Good Companions , as well as numerous dramas such as An Inspector Calls...
, Eric Partridge
Eric Partridge
Eric Honeywood Partridge was a New Zealand/British lexicographer of the English language, particularly of its slang. His writing career was interrupted only by his service in the Army Education Corps and the RAF correspondence department during World War II...
, Anthony Sampson
Anthony Sampson
Anthony Terrell Seward Sampson was a British writer and journalist. He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford and served with the Royal Navy from 1944-47. During the 1950s he edited the magazine Drum in Johannesburg, South Africa...
, Maxim Gorky
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov , primarily known as Maxim Gorky , was a Russian and Soviet author, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist.-Early years:...
, Che Guevara
Che Guevara
Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
, L. P. Hartley
L. P. Hartley
Leslie Poles Hartley was a British writer, known for novels and short stories. His best-known work is The Go-Between , which was made into a 1970 film, directed by Joseph Losey with a star cast, in an adaptation by Harold Pinter...
, and George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
.
Book banning controversy
Stein's book The Magician was the subject of a 1981 controversy initiated by Christian groups involving high school libraries and literature classes, the most notable of which was in the small city of Montello, WisconsinMontello, Wisconsin
Montello is a city in and the county seat of Marquette County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 1,397 at the 2000 census. The Fox River flows through the city...
. Members of the Montello School board, in their association with Christian right groups and, some allege, anti-Semitic right-wing hate groups, rallied to have the book banned not only at their high school but at schools throughout the country. The head of the English Department and the school administration opposed the book banning and launched a campaign for public support. In the end, the school board members responsible for the book banning proposal were not only overruled but removed from the school board. Stein later sent every resident of the town of 1100 a copy of the book. The controversy attracted national media attention and was for a time regarded as a marquee victory for free speech advocates.
Honors
- Honorary Life Member, International Brotherhood of MagiciansInternational Brotherhood of MagiciansInternational Brotherhood of Magicians is the world's largest organization for professional and amateur magicians, with approximately 15,000 members worldwide. The headquarters is in St...
, Ring 26, 1947. - Honorary Phi Beta Kappa, College of the City of New York, tc
- Distinguished Instructor Award, University of California at Irvine, 1992
Novels
The Husband, Coward-McCann, 1969, Pocket Books, 1970. British Commonwealth: Michael Joseph, Mayflower. Translated into German, Spanish, Japanese, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Dutch.The Magician, Delacorte, 1971, Dell, 1972. Selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club. British Commonwealth: Michael Joseph, Mayflower. Translated into French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Russian. Film rights to Twentieth-Century Fox. Screenplay by Sol Stein.
Living Room, Arbor House, 1974, Bantam, 1975. The Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club. British Commonwealth: The Bodley Head, New English Library. Translated into French, German (2 editions), Italian, Japanese.
The Childkeeper, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975, Dell, 1976. British Commonwealth: Collins, Fontana. Translated into German, Spanish. German language TV motion picture released
Other People, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980, Dell, 1981. British Commonwealth: Collins, Fontana. French, German, Italian (3 editions), Greek.
The Resort, Morrow, 1981, Dell, 1982. British Commonwealth: Collins, Fontana. Translated into Russian. Motion picture rights optioned (twice).
The Touch of Treason, Marek/St. Martin's Press, 1985, Berkley, 1986. British Commonwealth: Macmillan. Translated into German, Greek, Swedish, Norwegian.
A Deniable Man, McGraw-Hill, April, 1989. Translated into German.
The Best Revenge, Random House, 1991.
Nonfiction books
A Feast for Lawyers, hardcover, M. Evans, 1989, paperback 1992. Trade paperback, Beard Books, 1999.Stein on Writing, St. Martin’s Press, 1995 hardback, 2000 paperback; British Commonwealth under the title Solutions for Writers, Souvenir Press. German edition, Zweitausendeins.
How to Grow a Novel, St. Martin’s Press, 1999, British Commonwealth under the title Solutions for Novelists, Souvenir Press, 2000, in German, Zweitausendeins 2000.
Plays and screenplays
Napoleon (previously titled The Illegitimist), produced New York and California, 1953, winner of Dramatists Alliance Prize, “best full-length play of 1953”A Shadow of My Enemy, produced by Roger Stevens, Hume Cronyn
Hume Cronyn
Hume Blake Cronyn, OC was a Canadian actor of stage and screen, who enjoyed a long career, often appearing professionally alongside his second wife, Jessica Tandy.-Early life:...
, and Alfred DeLiagre, ANTA Theater, 1957, starring Ed Begley
Ed Begley
Edward James Begley, Sr. was an Academy Award-winning American actor.-Biography:Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Begley began his career as a Broadway and radio actor while in his teens. He appeared in the hit musical Going Up on Broadway in 1917 and in London the next year. He later acted in...
and Gene Raymond
Gene Raymond
Gene Raymond was an American film, television, and stage actor of the 1930s and 1940s. In addition to acting, Raymond was also a composer, writer, director, producer, and decorated military pilot.-Stage and movie career:...
The Magician, screenplay, 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
External links
- Sol Stein Papers at the Rare Book & Manuscript LibraryRare Book & Manuscript LibraryThe Columbia University's Rare Book & Manuscript Library is located on the 6th Floor of Columbia University's Butler Library. The library holds the special collections of Columbia University, as well as the Columbia University Archives. The range of the library's holdings spans more than 4,000...
at Columbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...