Stein and Day

The firm was based in New York City, and was in business for 27 years, until closing in 1989.

• Name — Stein and Day • Status — Defunct • Founded — 1962 • Founder — Sol Stein, Patricia Day • Defunct — 1989 • Country — United States • Headquarters — New York City, New York • Publications — Books • Genre — Fiction, non-fiction

Stein and Day's first book was Elia Kazan's America America, published in 1962, which was a bestseller and was adapted into a film by Kazan. 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 first novel The Arrangement, which was #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list for 37 consecutive weeks. The firm relocated from Manhattan to Briarcliff Manor, New York in 1975, and published about 100 books a year until the company declared bankruptcy in 1987, selling its backlist in 1988. Stein and Day's demise was the subject of Stein's book A Feast for Lawyers. The New York Times wrote, "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 Institute at its annual convention in Washington. Columbia University holds the Stein and Day Archives, which chronicles the firm's 27 years of existence.

Stein and Day published works by Leslie Fiedler, David Frost, Jack Higgins, Dylan Thomas, Budd Schulberg, Claude Brown, Bertram Wolfe, Harry Lorayne, Wanda Landowska and Marilyn Monroe, among others. They were the U.S. publishers of J. B. Priestley, Eric Partridge, Maxim Gorky, Che Guevara, L. P. Hartley, and George Bernard Shaw.