Cast of Characters Cover: Thurber, St. Clair McKelway, Gibbs, Maloney & Parker; More from A Case For Pencils

It being The New Yorker’s 90th anniversary, how fitting that the cover has been revealed for Thomas Vinciguerra’s Cast of Characters: Wolcott Gibbs, E.B. White, James Thurber, and The Golden Age of The New Yorker. Quite a crew gathered for a book party at the Algonquin Hotel in 1938: seated, left to right, Fritz Foord (who ran Foord’s Sanitarium in

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In the House: Curtain Calls of 1926

This wonderful  book arrived in today’s mail. I was very lucky to find it for the price of a couple of slices of pizza (with toppings).  According to an online bookseller’s listing there were 40 copies produced. It’s a small book, 8 1/2″ high, 6″ wide.  I’d only seen one before, years ago in a museum case. If I’ve had

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The Algonquin

  The  holiday season reminds me of the Algonquin Hotel, and once reminded I only have to look across my desk to the snowglobe pictured above.  It was given to me years ago by friends who stayed at the hotel for a day or two.   I threw together the little scene above for Ink Spillers. The snowglobe sits atop

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