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THE SMART MAGAZINES

Name: THE SMART MAGAZINES
Author: George H. Douglas
ISBN: 0-208-02309-7

50 YEARS OF LITERARY REVELRY AND HIGH JINKS AT VANITY FAIR, THE NEW YORKER, LIFE, ESQUIRE AND THE SMART SET

by George H. Douglas ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1991

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The nation's most brilliant magazines in the first four decades of the 20th century, presented with style by the author of the sprightly Women of the 20s (1986). Douglas begins in the 1890's, with magazines that depended on circulation and kept their advertising to dull, cramped columns in the back pages. But as the US changed from a rural to urban society, he explains, advertising came to such bold and vivid new life that some magazines could have been given away free and still have shown big profits. The Smart Set took over from the notorious New York society weekly Town Topics, whose literary pages alternated with ``an unbridled appetite for salacious chatter and slander''—it was published by Colonel William D'Alton Mann, a blackmailer. In 1906, the young iconoclasts H.L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan were brought on board as book and theater reviewers and eventually became joint editors with the principal objective of giving all young ``literary bucks and wenches'' a place to show off their work. Their ten years of editorship brought first-class writers such as Willa Cather and F. Scott Fitzgerald into the fold; they finally left to found their own literary magazine, The American Mercury. On the other hand, Douglas explains, gentlemanly Frank Crowninshield's Vanity Fair was avant-garde, distinctive, and appealed to a sophisticated elite—and yet in 1915 topped all magazines for advertising. Vanity Fair was New York, and its three leading literary wits—Robert Benchley, Dorothy Parker, Robert E. Sherwood—founded the Algonquin Round Table. In some ways, ``hobo newspaperman'' Harold Ross's New Yorker displaced Vanity Fair, while Arnold Gingrich's overnight sensation, Esquire—featuring fact-pieces by Hemingway—prompted Vanity Fair's publisher to merge it with Vogue. Zesty, but not overly spiced.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1991

ISBN: 0-208-02309-7

Page Count: 242

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1991

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
EDUCATION WITHOUT IMPACT
by George H. Douglas

- BOOK REVIEW
ALL ABOARD!
by George H. Douglas

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.