Constant Reader - The New Yorker Columns 1927-28

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

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