Celebrating The New Yorker’s 100th Birthday: A Basic Library
If you’re interested in The New Yorker‘s beginnings, there are a number of books around that make for great reading. Whenever I’m presented with a head-scratcher of a question about the magazine’s infancy, I make the rounds looking for a full picture (in other words, I don’t rely on just one interpretation of events).
While my interest in The New Yorker is primarily its art and artists, I’ve never hesitated to snatch up a book that’ll tell me more about any aspect of the magazine’s beginnings.
The below aren’t in any order, other than for the first book, which I seem to go to the most.
Thomas Kunkel’s indispensable biography of Harold Ross, Genius In Disguise came out in 1995 (a paperback edition in 1996). My wife, (who is also deep into New Yorker history — you’ll see her book on the list later on), and I refer to this book simply as “Kunkel” as in “What does Kunkel say about that?” or “Did you check Kunkel?”
Dale Kramer’s Ross And the New Yorker, published in 1951, did not delight all New Yorker folks upon publication (file under: you can’t please everybody) but what it has going for it is primary sources. Kramer spoke directly to a number of the magazine’s contributors at the time. I find his accounts of the early days sometime fill in just a little more than Kunkel (Kunkel’s history obviously often closely parallels Kramers). On the other hand, Kunkel sometimes fills in more than Kramer’s account. Bottom line: you need both books.
Talk about yer primary sources! This account by Jane Grant, who was married to Harold Ross in the years before and slightly after the birth of The New Yorker (they were married from 1920-1929) is a must-read. My copy is loaded with paper book marks indicating events of note.
Depending on what I’m searching for, I often turn to the letters books after checking in with Kunkel and Kramer. Despite having Letters From The Editor: The New Yorker’s Harold Ross, (edited by Mr. Kunkel) in the library for about 25 years, I still come across material that surprises (the same can be said for all the letters books).
The Whites and Thurber:
I’ve gone to each of the below countless times over the years for the simple pleasure of revisiting the subject’s story, and/or to dive deeper into some “moment” I’ve come across while fact-chasing.
Two More Primary Sources:
Mr. Ingersoll had a somewhat bumpy ride working at the magazine from 1925 to 1930. In the August 1934 issue of Fortune magazine article on The New Yorker, he took out his dagger.
Corey Ford, there at the beginning (and pre-beginning!) of The New Yorker, gave name to Eustace Tilley while delivering The Making Of A Magazine.
Mrs. Parker and Mr. Benchley
The Spill library has several biographies of these gods of the magazine’s early years. Here are just two:
If I May…
Ordinarily I wouldn’t tout my own book on Peter Arno, but I have much less restraint when it comes to Liza Donnelly’s history of The New Yorker‘s women cartoonists, Very Funny Ladies. Both books take in the history of the magazine’s art department.
Even More:
I’ve tried to give you an idea of the titles I constantly rely on for the New Yorker’s earliest history (the reason why, for instance, Brendan Gill’s Here At The New Yorker isn’t included here). Here are two books in the Spill library that I haven’t spent enough time with, but should be noted: About Town: The New Yorker And The World It Made from 2001, and a brand new biography of Katharine White, The World She Edited.
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