Cast of Characters: Wolcott Gibbs, E. B. White, James Thurber, and the Golden Age of The New Yorker

"Exuberant . . . elegantly conjures an evocative group dynamic." -Sam Roberts, New York Times

From its birth in 1925 to the early days of the Cold War, The New Yorker slowly but surely took hold as the country's most prestigious, entertaining, and informative general-interest periodical. In Cast of Characters, Thomas Vinciguerra paints a portrait of the magazine's cadre of charming, wisecracking, driven, troubled, brilliant writers and editors.

He introduces us to Wolcott Gibbs, theater criti...