The Legendary Writers of the "Vicious Circle"
Collected Together For the First Time
"The Algonquin was a refuge for the brightest authors, editors, critics, columnists, artists, financiers, composers, directors, producers and actors of the times. The dining-room corner was a hot bed of raconteurs and conversationalists."
-Harpo Marx
In Jazz Age New York City, no literary lights burned more brightly than those of the legendary Algonquin Round Table. Now between covers for the first time is a collection of writing by 16 members of the group, an all-star gathering that took 90 years to come together. Many of these pieces have never been published before; plucked from private family collections and "lost" pieces from obscure periodicals.
● Humor pieces by Robert Benchley, Franklin P. Adams, Heywood Broun, Frank Sullivan and Donald Ogden Stewart.
● Criticism from Dorothy Parker, George S. Kaufman and Robert E. Sherwood.
● Short fiction by Laurence Stallings and Pulitzer Prize-winners Edna Ferber and Margaret Leech.
● Journalism from Alexander Woollcott, Ruth Hale and Deems Taylor.
● Poetry by Adams, Marc Connelly, Dorothy Parker and John V. A. Weaver.
With a foreword by Nat Benchley.
About the Editors NATHANIEL R. (Nat) BENCHLEY grew up in New York City under the aura of his recently-departed grandfather. His father, Nathaniel G. Benchley, was making a name for himself as a freelance writer. After college, Nat received a commission in the U.S. Navy and used his language skills to secure a billet with the Naval Security Group. For better or worse, this led to duty in Southeast Asia during the dust-up from 1969-1972. He returned to The World and worked as a producer/writer for a national drug abuse prevention campaign for a year. He followed this with four years at the Washington, D.C., public television station writing and producing program promotions and development. Since 1978, he has been a freelance actor and writer in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, DC. He has recorded two audio CDs of readings of his grandfather's short stories, aptly titled "Benchley on Benchley, Volumes 1 and 2." He works closely with the Howard Gotlieb Archives at the Mugar Memorial Library of Boston University to keep track of most Benchleyana. He lives in New York with his wife, Kathleen Peacock Benchley. KEVIN C. FITZPATRICK was born in Baltimore in 1966 and raised in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; Summit, New Jersey; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Webster Groves, Missouri. From 1984-1989 he served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve as a journalist-photographer, reaching the rank of lance corporal. He earned a B.A. from Northeast Missouri State University. In 1991 he moved to New York City. Fitzpatrick has worked for newspapers, magazines, TV networks, Web sites, ad agencies and publishing houses as a writer, editor and project manager. In 1998 Fitzpatrick launched dorothyparker.com and founded the Dorothy Parker Society. Today, the Society has more than 3,000 members worldwide. In 2005 Roaring Forties Press of Berkeley, California, published his first book, the literary travel guide A Journey into Dorothy Parker's New York. It will be followed by The Algonquin Round Table'
