Founded in 1925, The New Yorker was a magazine that was, according to its founder, Harold Ross, "not edited for the little old lady in Dubuque," but was "a reflection in word and picture of metropolitan life." Here is a list of books having to do with the magazine and its writers in some way.
Considered the equal to White, Thurber and Liebling during his three decades at The New Yorker, from the late 1920s until his death in 1958, Gibbs was a mainstay of the magazine. He published poems, short stories, profiles, casuals and acted as the magazine’s theater critic. He also found time to write a hit play, Season in the Sun, that was based on a series of short stories he had published in The New Yorker.
The early days of The New Yorker magazine had idiosyncratic writers, who merit being called cast of characters. Included are well-known writers: James Thurber, Charles Addams, E. B. and Katharine White, John O'Hara, Wolcott Gibbs, with accompanying zany stories, and other contributors, who have been overlooked: St. Clair McKelway, Frederick Packard, and John Mosher.
With approximately 230 short stories published in the magazine, John O'Hara is often called the progenitor of The New Yorker short story style. Many of O'Hara's stories were set in Gibbsville, PA, a fictionalized version of his hometown of Pottsville, with the major theme of his writing being social class. Much of his literary reputation comes from his short stories, although O'Hara was as highly acclaimed for his first novel, Appointment in Samarra.
Controversial at the time of its publication, Adler gives an insider’s view of the perceived decline of The New Yorker and the transitions from the editorship of William Shawn to Robert Gottlieb and then to Tina Brown.
A selection of John Lahr's theatre reviews, and profiles and interviews of theatre people: directors, actors, playwrights, and others. These articles are from Lahr's stint as the senior drama critic at The New Yorker.
A collection of S.N. Behrman's correspondence with his legendary editors at The New Yorker: Harold Ross, William Shawn and Katharine S. White. In addition to being a screenwriter, playwright and critic, Behrman was a contributor to the magazine for over four decades.
Writing for the magazine from the 1930s through the 1960s, McKelway specialized in light true crime stories about arsonists, embezzlers, counterfeiters, suspected Communists, and innocent men and the fire investigators, forensic accountants, Secret Service men, clueless FBI agents, and biased cops who pursued them.
A reporter at large for The New Yorker, Joseph Mitchell specialized in wonderful profiles of eccentrics, bohemians, Bowery denizens and other colorful characters that populated the city of New York. Before the odd end to his writing career, Mitchell was one of the most prolific writers for the magazine, and Up in the Old Hotel includes just about everything Mitchell wrote for The New Yorker. After "Joe Gould's Secret," his most famous story, Mitchell suffered from one of the most famous cases of writer's block ever. After publishing that last story in The New Yorker in 1964, Mitchell continued to go to the office every day for the next thirty years but never produced another word for the magazine.