Spoken Arts

One of the first companies to record the spoken word, founded in 1956 by Dr. Luce and Arthur Klein. Its self-declared mission was to "encourage a revival and reevaluation of the importance of the spoken word". It became well known for its recordings of 20th century authors and poets reading their own works, including such notables as Arthur Miller, Dorothy Parker, William Butler Yeats, Pablo Neruda, Gertrude Stein, W. H. Auden, Anaïs Nin and many others. On July 5th, 2001, Yale University and the Klein Family signed an agreement to incorporate the Klein Archive into the University’s Historical Sound Recordings (HSR) Collection.