SOCIAL SCIENCES

Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers, and Swells: The Best of Early Vanity Fair

by Graydon Carter
Penguin Pr. Nov. 2014. 432p. ed. by with David Friend. ISBN 9781594205989. $29.95. COMM
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Reading this compilation of writings published in Vanity Fair from the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s is like sampling a box of chocolates on Valentine's Day: a delicious confection of satire, poetry, biographical sketches, humorous pieces, and thought-provoking commentary. In this "best of" collection, Carter (editor, Vanity Fair) and Friend (contributor, Vanity Fair) feature such literary luminaries of the day as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Carl Sandburg, and T.S. Eliot. Essays by other important figures, including lawyer Clarence Darrow and philosopher Bertrand Russell also appear. With topics ranging from politics, war, the economy, the arts, literature, and entertainment, readers get a taste of what life was like during World War I, the Jazz Age, and the Great Depression.
VERDICT This volume, along with the magazine's illustrated retrospective, Vanity Fair 100 Years (2013), is a must-have for readers of the publication and connoisseurs of the history, art, and literature of the modern era.
Reviewed by Donna Marie Smith, Palm Beach Cty. Lib. Syst., FL , Nov 15, 2014
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