This book is a collection of essays on an iconic American periodical, providing new insights into twentieth-century literary culture. The book reads across and between The New Yorker departments, from sports writing to short stories, cartoons to reporters at large, poetry to annals of business. Attending to the relations between these kinds of writing and the magazine's visual and material constituents, the book examines the distinctive ways in which imaginative writing has inhabited the ‘prime real estate’ of this enormously influential periodical. In bringing together a range of sharply angl ... More

This book is a collection of essays on an iconic American periodical, providing new insights into twentieth-century literary culture. The book reads across and between The New Yorker departments, from sports writing to short stories, cartoons to reporters at large, poetry to annals of business. Attending to the relations between these kinds of writing and the magazine's visual and material constituents, the book examines the distinctive ways in which imaginative writing has inhabited the ‘prime real estate’ of this enormously influential periodical. In bringing together a range of sharply angled analyses of particular authors, styles, columns, and pages, the book offers multiple perspectives on American writing and periodical culture at specific moments in twentieth-century history. The book features new perspectives on major American writers in relation to their first publication contexts; it reconsiders modern and contemporary American writing and periodical culture, focusing critical attention on commercially successful ‘smart’ magazines; it draws on new research in The New Yorker's manuscript and digital archives; and, a distinctive combination of close critical reading and cultural analysis.