During the 1962–63 New York City newspaper strike, when The New York Times and six other newspapers suspended publication, Hardwick, her husband Robert Lowell, and Jason and Barbara Epstein, saw an opportunity to introduce the sort of vigorous book review that Hardwick had imagined.Jason Epstein recounts the story of the initial meeting of the Epsteins, Hardwick and Lowell in "A Strike and a Start: Founding The New York Review", NYR Blog, The New York Review of Books, March 16, 2013 Jason Epstein knew that book publishers would advertise their books in the new publication, since they had no other outlet for promoting new books.Harvey, Matt. "Brawls and books: Skepticism lives on as New York Review of Books ages but thrives", The Villager, vol. 78, no. 24, November 12–18, 2008, reprinted in Downtown Express, Vol. 21, No. 28, November 21, 2008. The group asked Silvers, who was still at Harper's, to edit the issue, and Silvers asked Barbara Epstein to co-edit it with him.Fassler, Joe. "A 50-Year Protest for Good Writing", The Atlantic, October 1, 2014; and Brown, Andrew. "The writer's editor", The Guardian, January 24, 2004Kolhatkar, Sheelah. "Robert Silvers", The New York Observer, December 19, 2005, p. 30 Silvers and Epstein "became an inseparable double act", editing The New York Review of Books together for the next 43 years, until her death in 2006.McGrath, Charles. "Barbara Epstein, Editor and Literary Arbiter, Dies at 77", The New York Times, June 17, 2006, accessed April 20, 2009; and Atlas, James. "The Ma and Pa of the Intelligentsia", New York Magazine, September 25, 2006, accessed April 6, 2017 Silvers continued as sole editor until his death in March 2017. In later years, he described his motivation for continuing to edit the Review: "I feel it's a fantastic opportunity – because of the freedom of it, because of the sense that there are marvelous, intensely interesting, important questions that you have a chance to try to deal with in an interesting way. That's an extraordinary opportunity in life. And you'd be crazy not to try and make the most of it." He said on another occasion: "We do what we want and don't try to figure out what the public wants." Asked in 2007 about who might succeed him as editor, Silvers replied: "It's not a question that's posing itself".Neyfakh, Leon. What's New at The New York Review of Books?" The New York Observer, December 13, 2007, accessed October 15, 2017 In 2012, he added, "I can think of several people who would be marvelous editors."McGrath, Charles. "Editor Not Ready to Write an Ending", The New York Times, March 16, 2012
