This captivating anthology gathers historic New Yorker pieces from a
decade of trauma and upheaval--as well as the years when The New
Yorker came of age, with pieces by Elizabeth Bishop, Langston Hughes,
Joseph Mitchell, Vladimir Nabokov, and George Orwell, alongside original
reflections on the 1940s by some of today's finest writers.
In this enthralling book, contributions from the great writers who
graced The New Yorker's pages are placed in historical context by the
magazine's current writers. Included in this volume are seminal profiles
of the decade's most fascinating figures: Albert Einstein, Walt Disney,
and Eleanor Roosevelt. Here are classics in reporting: John Hersey's
account of the heroism of a young naval lieutenant named John F.
Kennedy; Rebecca West's harrowing visit to a lynching trial in South
Carolina; and Joseph Mitchell's imperishable portrait of New York's
foremost dive bar, McSorley's. This volume also provides vital,
seldom-reprinted criticism, as well as an extraordinary selection of
short stories by such writers as Shirley Jackson and John Cheever.
Represented too are the great poets of the decade, from William Carlos
Williams to Langston Hughes. To complete the panorama, today's New
Yorker staff look back on the decade through contemporary eyes. The
40s: The Story of a Decade is a rich and surprising cultural portrait
that evokes the past while keeping it vibrantly present.
Including contributions by W. H. Auden - Elizabeth Bishop - John
Cheever - Janet Flanner - John Hersey - Langston Hughes - Shirley
Jackson - A. J. Liebling - William Maxwell - Carson McCullers - Joseph
Mitchell - Vladimir Nabokov - Ogden Nash - John O'Hara - George Orwell -
V. S. Pritchett - Lillian Ross - Stephen Spender - Lionel Trilling -
Rebecca West - E. B. White - Williams Carlos Williams - Edmund
Wilson
And featuring new perspectives by Joan Acocella - Hilton Als - Dan
Chiasson - David Denby - Jill Lepore - Louis Menand - Susan Orlean -
George Packer - David Remnick - Alex Ross - Peter Schjeldahl - Zadie
Smith - Judith Thurman
