3 “We’ve got to have more”: McKelway to JT, 4/2/58.
4 “Where are you?” Interview with Philip Hamburger, 8/8/91.
5 “as indeed it should have”: McKelway to JT, 4/2/58.
6 “million-word book”: Raymond Sokolov, Wayward Reporter: The Life of A. J: Liebling p. 106.
7 “George Baker, who by a process”: TNY, 6/20/36.
8 “On her walk, Mazie”: TNY, 12/21/40.
9 “You know, you write”: Interview with Joseph Mitchell, 1/13/92.
10 “Back in the twenties”: TNY, 10/5/35.
11 “You wouldn’t get rich”: HR to F. Scott Fitzgerald, 4/26/29.
12 “in the early days I never”: HR to Martha Gellhorn, 2/15/43.
13 “Ah yes, those wonderful”: Jerome Weidman, Praying for Rain, pp. 21–22.
14 “All I can say is that any man”: FS to HR, 10/14/33.
15 “slight, tiny, mood story”: KSW to Mrs. Miller, August [ca. 1947–48].
16 “Do you want to say a little prayer”: Davis, p. 103.
17 “the most beautiful letter”: Interview with Helen Stark, 12/3/92.
18 “You are one of the people”: KSW to Clarence Day, 10/22/35.
19 The “Chutzbah” story is from Weidman, pp. 112–13.
20 “People [were] working for what”: Interview with John Bainbridge, 9/29/91.
21 “Ross … would no more have thought”: A. J. Liebling, “Harold Ross—The Impresario,” Nieman Reports, April 1959.
22 “I have been a party to robbing”: HR to JT, 3/23/45.
23 “The magazine is having a slight”: HR to EBW, 4/22 [1943].
24 “A dollar bonus on each”: John O’Hara to HR, 1/5/34.
25 The story of O’Hara’s pawnshop watch is from The O’Hara Concern, by Matthew J. Bruccoli, p. 190.
26 Ross on “highlife-lowlife” stories is from “Joseph Mitchell and The New Yorker Nonfiction Writers,” by Norman Sims, in Literary Journalism in the Twentieth Century, Norman Sims, editor, p. 103.
27 “I must write you in connection”: HR to FS, Thursday [year unknown].
28 “It’s Ross’s old wall-tearing-down”: JT to KSW, 4/19/38.
29 “This magazine is run on ideas”: HR to Gluyas Williams, 8/7/34.
30 “Thurber’s people have no blood”: Thurber, Years with Ross, p. 63.
31 “Well, if it’s a fad”: JT interview on Omnibus television program, 3/4/56.
32 “Wait a minute, Hubb”: Interview with Albert Hubbell, 4/28/93.
33 “You looked like a gentleman”: James Geraghty’s notes on TNY.
34 “Miss Terry, I want you to meet”: Ibid.
35 “He would come back and say”: Interview with Dana Fradon, 3/19/93.
36 “Ross approached drawings”: Geraghty TNY notes.
37 “Delete what”: Interview with Peggy Day, 9/15/92.
38 “The checking of the names”: HR to JT, 12/13/44.
39 “and how much constant stimulation”: Gluyas Williams note in his collected papers, undated.
40 “You don’t think the father”: HR to Gluyas Williams, 12/19/47.
41 “I am writing this at home”: Ibid., Friday [1948].
42 “I don’t know what the hell”: Ibid., 5/20 [1948].
12: War
1 “when Hawley and Shawn”: EBW to KSW, Thursday [Summer 1948].
2 “I haven’t been an astonishingly”: Fleischmann to KSW, 1/12/61.
3 “It was practically starvation”: The New York Times, 12/9/92.
4 “he’s bright, by all indications”: HR to EBW, [Summer 1936].
5 “The ten million men”: TNY, 9/9/39.
6 “Great pressure is being”: HR to EBW, 5/31/40.
7 “Democracy is now asked”: TNY, 6/22/40.
8 “My very great fear”: HR to Paul Hyde Bonner, 9/11/40.
9 “My decision is that we have”: HR to EBW, 6/24 [1941].
10 “has suddenly shrunk”: TNY, 6/1/40.
11 “coming away from a story”: Brenda Wineapple, Genêt: A Biography of Janet Flanner, p. 165.
12 “In effect, Liebling treated”: Sokolov, p. 152.
13 “anybody who loved Paris”: TNY, 12/7/40.
14 “War, after all, is simple”: HR to EBW, Sunday [May 1941].
15 “They rejected me for everything”: Interview with Albert Hubbell, 4/28/93.
16 “God bless you, Hamburger”: Interview with Philip Hamburger, 9/15/92.
17 “Youth! Youth!”: Hamburger to author, 5/1/94.
18 “I am up to my nipples”: HR to Alexander Woollcott, 5/19/42.
19 “The magazine is running us”: HR to KSW, [1942?].
20 “I guess I will have to start writing”: Ring Lardner, Jr., The Lardners: My Family Remembered, p. 311.
21 “He left England”: HR to RW, 12/6/45.
22 “I have taken it every few”: HR to Mencken, 8/3/42.
23 “I have done everything right”: Ibid., 4/8/43.
24 “The giants have come down”: Geraghty TNY notes.
25 “The New Yorker is a worse madhouse”: EBW to Stanley Hart White, 3/2/44.
26 “Nobody knows what war is” HR to FS, 12/17/46.
27 “hot love hole”: HR to FS, 1/20/47.
28 “Is she active?”: Interview with William and Harriet Walden, 8/12/91.
29 “You’re a loss to American industry”: From Geoffrey Hellman speech, 5/14/75.
30 “There was a certain amount of wine”: TNY, 2/26/44.
31 “I asked the boy what”: TNY, 7/1/44.
32 “As the hours went by”: TNY, 7/8/44.
33 “We were no more in the house”: Nunnally Johnson to JT, 9/3/57.
34 “Don’t thank me, Hellman”: Hellman speech.
35 Ross–Kip Orr elevator story is from an interview with Philip Hamburger, 9/14/92.
36 “No pretty woman like that”: Janet Flanner to Natalia Danesi Murray, 12/11/51.
37 “Advertisers are running around”: HR to EBW, 5/7 [1943].
38 “a historical moment”: Flanner to Murray, 1/21/45.
39 “Where is that goddam pope?” Philip Hamburger speech, 11/21/91.
40 “The more time that passes”: William Shawn to John Hersey, 3/22/46.
41 “one of the most remarkable”: HR to RW, 8/27/46.
42 “Hersey has written thirty thousand”: HR to EBW, [1946].
43 “Can something that is two-dimensional”: Hersey, p. x.
44 “There was never any magazine story”: HR to FS, 9/5/46.
45 “I don’t think I’ve ever got as much”: HR to Irwin Shaw, 9/16/46.
46 “the most famous magazine article”: TNY, 4/5/93.
13: Squire
1 “Twenty years ago this week:” TNY, 2/17/45.
2 “One is that the major owner”: HR to Lloyd Paul Stryker, 7/4/45.
3 “It’s downright ridiculous”: Draft of 1945 letter from JG to Stryker, not sent.
4 “She got a sucker”: This and next passage from HR letter to Stryker, 10/29/45.
5 “the hardest-working”: HR to RW, 11/25/47.
6 “the whole editor emeritus”: HR to Julius Baer, 11/12/45.
7 “He thought I ought to know”: Interview with Patricia Ross Honcoop, 1/31/92.
8 “Patty, try not to annoy”: Ibid., 2/21/92.
9 “How about a nice vegetable”: Ford, p. 130.
10 “When I came in he said”: Interview with Patricia Ross Honcoop, 3/9/92.
11 “mired like a wounded bird”: S. J. Perelman to JT, 9/6/57.
12 “no-limit stud poker”: HR to RW, 10/4/49.
13 “damned well had to catch a train”: Ibid.
14 “Nothing to it”: Richard H. Rovere, Final Reports, p. 87.
15 “a wise and remarkable man”: HR to RW, 8/16/49.
16 “Ross got more and more nervous”: Interview with Daphne Hellman Shih, 9/30/91.
17 “Goddammit, I forgot”: Interview with Patricia Ross Honcoop, 2/7/92.
18 “T
here was a standing rule”: United Press report, 12/7/51.
19 “had something of the same idea”: FS to KSW, 4/25/48.
20 “Their gay plans curled”: HR to Elmer Davis, 9/13/49.
21 “Thank God we can relax”: Interview with Elizabeth Paepcke, 8/12/92.
22 “Dear Sir (or Madam)”: Interview with Tony Gibbs, 11/19/92.
23 “He was a person who was almost incapable”: Ibid., 1/14/93.
24 “Maybe he doesn’t like anything”: Thurber, Years with Ross, p. 128.
25 “glided past like a ghost”: Edmund Wilson to JT, 3/22/58.
26 “I’ve always felt that play”: The New York Times, 8/17/58.
27 “Well, think about it for a second”: Interview with Tony Gibbs, 1/14/93.
28 “Pretty Little Parlor”: TNY, 4/29/44.
29 “We may sound provincial to you”: HR to W. Averell Harriman, 11/15/49.
30 “Your sports parable”: WG to EBW, [October 1947].
31 “Edmund Wilson once explained”: KSW note in her collected papers, 1972.
32 “I may cut my throat”: HR to KSW, [1948].
33 “hit it off so well with the ghost”: Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory, introduction to 1966 edition, p. 10.
34 “Ross would sometimes consult me”: Davis, p. 142.
35 “he managed to communicate”: Interview with Edward Newhouse, 3/10/94.
36 Ross on “The Lottery”: HR to Stanley Edgar Hyman, 8/9/48.
37 “maybe that will make up”: Geraghty TNY notes.
14: Recluse About Town
1 “Dodd should really be played”: Wolcott Gibbs, Season in the Sun (play), p. 92.
2 “He says you’re the greatest”: Ibid., p. 167.
3 “I’ve never been up against”: HR to Howard Brubaker, 1/22/51.
4 “It’s incredible for Americans”: HR to RW, 8/8/50.
5 “Goddammit, I have it on good authority”: Janet Flanner to Solita Solano, 10/9/52.
6 “the only non-phony”: FS to HR, 6/30/42.
7 “Nobody ever shoots Santa Claus”: HR to Mencken, 11/10/48.
8 “You don’t think my father”: HR to FS, 10/18/48.
9 “My viewpoint is that if the people”: HR to EBW, Sunday [October 1943].
10 “Jesus Christ, Kahn, why did you”: Interview with E. J. Kahn, Jr., 8/9/91.
11 “I notice, in reading over”: TNY, 9/4/43.
12 “has again seen fit to refer”: J. Edgar Hoover to HR, 9/13/43.
13 “an elemental education”: FBI memorandum, 7/18/49.
14 “Merely and simply”: HR to Flanner, 6/9/50.
15 “getting [out] this damned Christmas issue”: Flanner to JG, 12/9/51.
16 “Odd that he, such a patron”: Flanner to Natalia Danesi Murray, 11/15/50.
17 “And you don’t believe in them”: Flanner to KSW, 11/1 [1953].
18 “I returned to Paris”: Ibid.
19 “He’s some kind of recluse”: Interview with Albert Hubbell, 4/28/93.
20 “There was material enough”: Mencken to HR, 3/30/43.
21 “People write about me”: Interview with Philip Hamburger, 8/8/91.
22 “I am editor of an adult”: This and following passages are from Ross’s testimony before the New York State Public Service Commission, 12/21/49.
23 “I’m a well-dressed man”: Associated Press report, February 1950.
24 “It says here you’ll get”: Edward Weeks, Writers and Friends, p. 211.
25 “This is what Mr. Gibbs”: WG to JT, 8/12/57.
15: Back to the Algonquin
1 “old people ought to be bumped off”: HR to RW, 6/20/51.
2 “I think I believe in God”: Interview with Patricia Ross Honcoop, 2/7/92.
3 “I write as a duodenum-scarred”: This and next excerpt are from Ross’s introduction to Good Food for Bad Stomachs, by Sara M. Jordan, M.D., and Sheila Hibben, pp. 6–7.
4 “We’re getting old”: HR to RW, 2/27/51.
5 “Expecting Ross to take it easy”: JT to KSW, 5/14/51.
6 “so beautiful and restful”: HR to RW, 6/20/51.
7 “I am back at work”: HR to EBW, [September 1951].
8 “It is only fair to note”: TNY, 11/17/51.
9 “It’s practically the only thing”: Thurber, Years with Ross, p. 191.
10 “I’m up here to end this thing”: Ibid., p. 304.
11 “Take me home”: Interviews with Philip Hamburger, 9/15/92; and Cecille Shawn, 2/4/93.
12 “Please believe me, Mrs. Ross”: Ariane Ross to JT, 11/16/57.
13 “Oh, Mrs. Ross, haven’t you”: Ibid.
14 “Why, about your father”: Interview with Patricia Ross Honcoop, 2/7/92.
15 “enormous, like losing the top”: Janet Flanner to KSW, 12/13 [1951].
16 “K and I … have the sensation”: EBW to H. K. Rigg, 12/11/51.
17 “This is known, in these offices”: TNY, 12/15/51.
18 The Thurber story is from an interview with Mary D. Kierstead, 3/10/92.
Epilogue: The Angel of Repose
1 “He hated all tyrannies”: The New York Times, 12/11/51.
2 “On next February 26”: Variety, 12/12/51.
3 “such a bunch of normally noisy”: EBW to Elmer Davis, 12/16/51.
4 “violence of personal feelings”: File note from 1952 in Ralph Ingersoll’s collected papers.
5 “Thus again is virtue”: Fleischmann to KSW, 10/1 [1958].
6 “I read a garble”: JT to EBW, 2/20/54.
SELECTED
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