Constant Reader: The New Yorker Columns 1927-28

by Dorothy Parker, Sloane Crosley (Foreword by)

Overview

Dorothy Parker’s complete weekly New Yorker column about books and people and the rigors of reviewing.

When, in 1927, Dorothy Parker became a book critic for the New Yorker, she was already a legendary wit, a much-quoted member of the Algonquin Round Table, and an arbiter of literary taste. In the year that she spent as a weekly reviewer, under the rupic “Constant Reader,” she created what is still the most entertaining book column ever written. Parker’s hot takes have lost none of their heat, whether she’s taking aim at the evangelist Aimee Semple MacPherson (“She can go on like that for hours. Can, hell—does”), praising Hemingway’s latest collection (“He discards detail with magnificent lavishness”), or dissenting from the Tao of Pooh (“And it is that word ‘hummy,’ my darlings, that marks the first place in The House at Pooh Corner at which Tonstant Weader Fwowed up”).

Introduced with characteristic wit and sympathy by Sloane Crosley, Constant Reader gathers the complete weekly New Yorker reviews that Parker published from October 1927 through November 1928, with gimlet-eyed appreciations of the high and low, from Isadora Duncan to Al Smith, Charles Lindbergh to Little Orphan Annie, Mussolini to Emily Post

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781961341258
Publisher:	McNally Editions
Publication date:	11/05/2024
Series:	McNally Editions
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	103,760
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Dorothy Parker née Rothschild (1898–1967), grew up on New York’s Upper West Side. She became famous for her comic poems, her short stories, her reviews, and her repartée, as recorded by the columnist Wolcott Gibbs over lunches at the Algonquin hotel. A prolific magazine contributor in her youth and a successful screenwriter (she co-wrote the original A Star is Born), she struggled all her life with alcoholism and wrote very little in her later decades, though continued to be a vocal champion of progressive causes, especially civil rights.

Sloane Crosley is the author of the essay collections I Was Told There’d Be Cake (a 2009 finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor), How Did You Get This Number, and Look Alive Out There (a 2019 Thurber Prize finalist); the novels The Clasp and Cult Classic; and, most recently, her memoir, Grief Is for People. A contributing editor at Vanity Fair, she lives in New York City.

Read an Excerpt

Table of Contents
Foreword by Sloane Crosley

October 1, 1927

The Highly Recurrent Mr. Hamilton—Al Smith, and How He Grew—Bad News of May Sinclair

October 8, 1927

Mrs. Colby's Second Novel —The Private Papers of the Dead—The Philosopher Takes a Long Look at Himself

October 15, 1927

An American Du Barry—A Biography of Henry Ward Beecher

October 22, 1927

Re-enter Margot Asquith—Something Young—A Masterpiece from the French

October 29, 1927

A Book of Great Short Stories—Something About Cabell

November 5, 1927

The Professor Goes in For Sweetness and Light Short Stories from One Who Knows How to Do Them—Sketches, Mostly Unpleasant—A Biography of a Much-Talked-About Lady

November 12, 1927

Mr. Morley Capers on a Toadstool—Mr. Milne Grows to be Six

November 19, 1927

Adam and Eve and Lilith and Epigrams—Something More About Cabell

November 26. 1927

Madame Glyn Lectures on “It,” with Illustrations

December 3, 1927

The Most Popular Reading Matter

December 10, 1927

The Socialist Looks at Literature—A Lyricist Looks at His Neighbors

December 17, 1927

The Short Story, Through a Couple of the Ages

December 31, 1927

Mrs. Post Enlarges on Etiquette

January 7, 1928

More Troubles for Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh

January 14, 1928

Poor, Immortal Isadora

January 28, 1928

Re-enter Miss Hurst, Followed by Mr. Tarkington

February 4, 1927

A Good Novel, and a Great Story

February 11, 1928

Literary Rotarians

February 18, 1928

Excuse It, Please

February 25, 1928

Our Lady of the Loudspeaker

March 10, 1928

Unfinished Endeavors

March 17, 1928

The Compleat Bungler

March 24, 1928

Ethereal Mildness

March 31, 1928

A Very Dull Article, Indeed

April 7, 1928

Mr. Lewis Lays It on with a Trowel

April 14, 1928

Mrs. Norris and the Beast

April 21, 1928

These Much Too Charming People

May 19, 1928

Hard-Boiled Virgins Are Faithful Lovers

May 26, 1928

Mr. See Sees It Through

August 25, 1928

Back to the Book-Shelf

September 15, 1928

Duces Wild

September 29, 1928

How it Feels to be One Hundred and Forty-six

October 20, 1928

Far from Well

November 17, 1928

Wallflower’s Lament

Table of Contents

Foreword by Sloane Crosley

Oct 1, 1927: The Highly Recurrent Mr. Hamilton—Al Smith, and How He Grew—Bad News of May Sinclair

Oct 8, 1927: Mrs. Colby’s Second Novel—The Private Papers of the Dead—The Philosopher Takes a Long Look at Himself

Oct 15, 1927: An American Du Barry—A Biography of Henry Ward Beecher

Oct 22, 1927: Re-enter Margot Asquith—Something Young—A Masterpiece from the French

Oct 29, 1927: A Book of Great Short Stories—Something About Cabell

Nov 5, 1927: The Professor Goes in for Sweetness and Light—Short Stories from One Who Knows How to Do Them—Sketches, Mostly Unpleasant—A Biography of a Much-Talked-About Lady

Nov 12, 1927: Mr. Morley Capers on a Toadstool—Mr. Milne Grows to Be Six

Nov 19, 1927: Adam and Eve and Lilith and Epigrams—Something More About Cabell

Nov 26. 1927: Madame Glyn Lectures on It, with Illustrations

Dec 3, 1927: The Most Popular Reading Matter

Dec 10, 1927: The Socialist Looks at Literature—A Lyricist Looks at His Neighbors

Dec 17, 1927: The Short Story, Through a Couple of the Ages

Dec 31, 1927: Mrs. Post Enlarges on Etiquette

Jan 7, 1928: More Troubles for Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh

Jan 14, 1928: Poor, Immortal Isadora

Jan 28, 1928: Re-enter Miss Hurst, Followed by Mr. Tarkington

Feb 4, 1928: A Good Novel, and a Great Story

Feb 11, 1928: Literary Rotarians

Feb 18, 1928: Excuse It, Please—Americans at Play—This Sentimental Grand Vizier

Feb 25, 1928: Our Lady of the Loudspeaker

Mar 10, 1928: Unfinished Endeavors

Mar 17, 1928: The Compleat Bungler

Mar 24, 1928: Ethereal Mildness

Mar 31, 1928: A Very Dull Article, Indeed

Apr 7, 1928: Mr. Lewis Lays It On with a Trowel

Apr 14, 1928: Mrs. Norris and the Beast

Apr 21, 1928: These Much Too Charming People

May 19, 1928: Hard-Boiled Virgins Are Faithful Lovers

May 26, 1928: Mr. See Sees It Through

Aug 25, 1928: Back to the Book-Shelf

Sep 15, 1928: Duces Wild

Sep 29, 1928: How It Feels to Be One Hundred and Forty-Six

Oct 20, 1928: Far from Well

Nov 17, 1928: Wallflower’s Lament

Editorial Reviews

Does anyone know how hard it is to be that funny? . . . Read her book reviews. Read them now and see how good they are.”

—Fran Lebowitz

“In Parker’s hands, the humble book review becomes an instrument as expressive as a lyric poem.”

—Nicholas Frankel, The Wall Street Journal, Five Best Books by Great Wits

“All I wanted in this world was to come to New York and be Dorothy Parker. The funny lady. The only lady at the table. The woman who made her living by her wit . . . Who always got off the perfect line at the perfect moment, who never went home and lay awake wondering what she ought to have said because she had said exactly what she ought to have.”

—Nora Ephron, Esquire

“The Constant Reader columns are not really book reviews; they are standup-comedy routines. You don’t have to listen to her opinion, she says. If she didn’t like the book, maybe that’s just her hangover speaking.”

—Joan Acocella, The New Yorker

“I was far more beguiled . . . by her New Yorker book reviews . . . [They] contain the best of what we’ve been trying to do all these years—we ‘booksy‐wooksies,’ as she called us. She snuck into the tradition with a razor in her stocking, and we’ve been trying to slice things her way ever since.”

—Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times

“Can anyone ever get too much of Dorothy Parker? . . . Here is the happy news that McNally Editions is republishing her book column “Constant Reader,” from The New Yorker, a gig that lasted only a year but whose critiques read as fresh and as wonderful as when they first appeared, in the late 1920s . . . Sloane Crosley provides a witty and perceptive foreword.”

—Jim Kelly, Air Mail, Editor’s Picks

“Parker’s column helped to establish the New Yorker voice; wry, puckish, world-weary . . . When she turns to the books themselves, she is of course very funny, with jokes sustained over paragraphs, pages and months . . . This is the Dorothy Parker we recognize: glittering, at the peak of her humorous powers, in an eternal pre-Depression New York.”

—Violet Hudson, Times Literary Supplement

“What gives her writing its peculiar tang is her gift for seeing something to laugh at in the bitterest tragedies of the human animal.”

—Somerset Maugham

“A bestselling poet who moved on to fiction, Dorothy Parker . . . was equally innovative as a critic, pioneering a first‑person style and busting the taboo on hatchet jobs by women . . . She was arguably the first female celebrity wit since the 17th century, outperforming her illustrious male peers.”

—John Dugdale, The Guardian

“Constant Reader contains the kind of wit that no longer flourishes. I laughed loudly throughout and sobbed softly in memory. There would be fewer bad books published today if Mrs. Parker were alive to have at them.”

—George Oppenheimer

“Length doesn’t increase depth, necessarily, and just because her little characterizations of a book were short doesn’t mean they weren’t true.”

—Gloria Steinem

From the Publisher

It is through Parker’s refusal to claim authority, then, that her book reviews achieve it. She presents readers with an unpretentious, sometimes self-mocking voice that, while it expresses strong opinions, pretends no Olympian knowledge or status. Her use of humor is even-handed: she uses it to make fun of shallow, silly, or just plain bad published work, but she also turns it on herself . . . And, as a bonus, the reviews contain some of her own best, most spirited writing, which is the reason, finally, that we continue to read them with such pleasure.

Studies in American Humor - Nancy A. Walker

Does anyone know how hard it is to be that funny? . . . Read her book reviews. Read them now and see how good they are.

Fran Lebowitz

Length doesn’t increase depth, necessarily, and just because her little characterizations of a book were short doesn’t mean they weren’t true.”

Gloria Steinem

In Parker’s hands, the humble book review becomes an instrument as expressive as a lyric poem.

Wall Street Journal, Five Best Books by Great Wits - Nicholas Frankel

A bestselling poet who moved on to fiction, Dorothy Parker . . . was equally innovative as a critic, pioneering a first-person style and busting the taboo on hatchet jobs by women . . . She was arguably the first female celebrity wit since the 17th century, outperforming her illustrious male peers.

The Guardian - John Dugdale

What gives her writing its peculiar tang is her gift for seeing something to laugh at in the bitterest tragedies of the human animal.

Somerset Maugham

The Constant Reader columns are not really book reviews; they are standup-comedy routines. You don’t have to listen to her opinion, she says. If she didn’t like the book, maybe that’s just her hangover speaking.

New Yorker - Joan Acocella

All I wanted in this world was to come to New York and be Dorothy Parker. The funny lady. The only lady at the table. The woman who made her living by her wit . . . Who always got off the perfect line at the perfect moment, who never went home and lay awake wondering what she ought to have said because she had said exactly what she ought to have.

Esquire - Nora Ephron

Can anyone ever get too much of Dorothy Parker? . . . Here is the happy news that McNally Editions is republishing her book column “Constant Reader,” from The New Yorker, a gig that lasted only a year but whose critiques read as fresh and as wonderful as when they first appeared, in the late 1920s . . . Sloane Crosley provides a witty and perceptive foreword.

Air Mail, Editor’s Picks - Jim Kelly