Barbara Epstein (née Zimmerman; August 30, 1928 – June 16, 2006) was a literary editor and founding co-editor of The New York Review of Books.

[1] Epstein, née Zimmerman, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a Jewish family, and graduated from Radcliffe College in 1949.

[2] Epstein rose to prominence as the editor at Doubleday of Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl, among other books.

[2] During the New York newspaper strike of 1963, Barbara and Jason Epstein, together with friends Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick, founded the biweekly magazine The New York Review of Books, which Barbara called "the paper".

Barbara Epstein remained at the New York Review of Books as an editor for 43 years.