Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?
Read Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? Online
Authors: Marion Meade
Tags: #American - 20th century - Biography, #Women, #Biography, #Historical, #Authors, #Fiction, #Women and literature, #Literary Criticism, #Parker, #Literary, #Women authors, #Dorothy, #History, #United States, #Women and literature - United States - History - 20th century, #Biography & Autobiography, #American, #20th Century, #General
| Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? | |
| Marion Meade | |
| Penguin (1989) | |
| Rating: | ★★★★☆ |
| Tags: | United States, Women and literature, Women Authors, 20th century, Parker; Dorothy, American, Women authors; American, Fiction, Literary, Women, Authors; American, Literary Criticism, Authors; American - 20th century - Biography, Historical, Biography Autobiography, General, Women and literature - United States - History - 20th century, Biography, History United Statesttt Women and literaturettt Women Authorsttt 20th centuryttt Parker; Dorothyttt Americanttt Women authors; Americanttt Fictionttt Literaryttt Womenttt Authors; Americanttt Literary Criticismttt Authors; American - 20th century - Biographyttt Historicalttt Biography Autobiographyttt Generalttt Women and literature - United States - History - 20th centuryttt Biographyttt Historyttt |
From Publishers Weekly
"Meade's lively biography recounts the unhappy life of the wise-cracking versifier, short story writer and critic," reported PW. "So detailed is Meade's book that this, one imagines, is the last time a biographer will need to explain why so talented a writer could at the same time be so nasty a human being." Photos.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Product Description
Dorothy Parker was known for her outrageous one-liners, her ruthless theater criticism, her clever verses and bittersweet stories, but there was another side to Dorothy Parker--a private life, set on a course of destruction. She suffered through two divorces, a string of painful affairs, a lifelong problem with alcohol, and several suicide attempts.
In this lively, absorbing biography, Marion Meade illuminates both the dark side of Parker and her days of wicked wittiness at the Algonquin Round Table with the likes of Robert Benchley, George Kaufman, and Harold Ross, and in Hollywood with S.J. Perelman, William Faulkner, and Lilian Hellman. At the dazzling center of it all, Meade gives us the flamboyant, self-destructive, and brilliant Dorothy Parker.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - THE EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE TRAGEDY
Chapter 5 - THE ALGONQUIN ROUND TABLE
Chapter 7 - LAUGHTER AND HOPE AND A SOCK IN THE EYE
Chapter 8 - “YESSIR, THE WHADDYECALL’EM BLUES”
Chapter 11 - SONNETS IN SUICIDE, OR THE LIFE OF JOHN KNOX
Chapter 12 - YOU MIGHT AS WELL LIVE
Chapter 17 - HIGH-FORCEPS DELIVERIES
Chapter 18 - HAM AND CHEESE, HOLD THE MAYO
Chapter 19 - LADY OF THE CORRIDOR
AFTERWORD TO THE TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
PENGUIN BOOKS
DOROTHY PARKER
Marion Meade has written a widely acclaimed biography,
Eleanor of Aquitaine
, and a novel entitled
Stealing Heaven: The Love Story of Heloise and Abelard.
She lives in Manhattan.
PENGUIN BOOKS
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First published in the United States of America by Villard Books,
A division of Random House, Inc. 1988
Published in Penguin Books 1989
Copyright © Marion Meade, 1987, 2006
All rights reserved
Grateful acknowledgment is made to The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Eslate of Dorothy Parker for permission to reprint excerpts from various materials by Dorothy Parker including letters, poems, untitled verse and speeches. Copyright © The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Estate of Dorothy Parker.
Acknowletlgment is made to the following libraries for permission to reprint material from their collections
: The University of Chicago Library, Department of Special Collections; The Bancroft Library, University of California., Berkeley, Thomas J. Mooney Papers (C-B 410); The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, Collection of American Literature; Columbia University Oral History Research Office, Copyright © Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York; The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection; Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania, the Burton Rascoe Collection, Department of Special Collections; the Harry Ransom Collection; Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania, the Button Rascoe Collection, Department of Special Collections; the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the University of Texas at Austin; Dallas Public Library, the Margo Jones Collection; The Newbeny Library, Malcolm Cowley Papers; Princeton University Library, F. Scott Fitzgerald Collection, Box 51; Fales Library, New York University; The Houghton Library, Harvard University; Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Arnold Gingrich Papers, Michigan Historical Collections; The John F. Kennedy Library, Bostn, Massachusetts, the Ernest Hemingway Collection; Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the George Lorimer Paper, Robert Benchley material
Page 460 constitutes an extension of this copyright page
.
Calligraphy by Gun Larson
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Meade, Marion, 1934-
Dorothy Parker: what fresh hell is this?/Marion Meade.
p. cm.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
eISBN : 978-1-101-46219-5
Parker, Dorothy, 1893-1967—Biography. 2. Authors,
American—20th century—Biography. 1. Title.
[PS3531.A5855Z77 1989]
818’.5209—dcl9
[R] 88-23782
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
FOR ALISON LINKHORN
Acknowledgments
Since Dorothy Parker herself left no correspondence, manuscripts, memorabilia, or private papers of any kind, I have had to reconstruct her life by talking to those who knew her and by retrieving material from various institutions, attics, trunks, and the personal files of people who considered her letters worth preserving.
Throughout her life she was secretive about her origins and gave the impression that she had no family ties whatsoever, even though her close relationship with her sister, Helen, lasted a lifetime. This biography was written with the cooperation of Lel Droste Iveson, Dorothy Parker’s niece, who generously shared with me memories of her aunt and details of the family’s history, as well as Parker’s childhood letters, verse, and a scrapbook—photo album compiled over the course of many years. She has my deepest gratitude. I also would like to thank other members of the family who have been of tremendous help to me: Joan Grossman, Robert Iveson, Marge Droste, and Nancy Arcaro. Special thanks to Susan Cotton for the loan of the album.
Roy Eichel, the only surviving member of Alan Campbell’s family, offered me photographs, reminiscences spanning nine decades, and the hospitality of his home. His wonderful cooperation was altogether a biographer’s dream.
Many persons have contributed to this biography. They shared their recollections in interviews, telephone conversations, and letters; they took considerable trouble to locate photographs and correspondence, search for sheet music, draw maps, conduct tours of their homes, prepare meals, and guide me to sources I might otherwise have not known about. Without their generous assistance this book would not exist. To all of them I am greatly indebted:
Timothy Adams, Charles Addams, Stella Adler, Louisa Alger, Vera Allen, Bill Allyn, Roger Angell, Andrew Anspach, Patricia Arno, Louis Auchincloss, Julian Bach, Don Bachardy, Lisa Bain, Shirley Booth Baker, Fredericka Barbour, Margaret Barker, Vita Barsky, Charles Baskerville, Lois Battle, Saul Bellow, Nathaniel Benchley, Leonard Bernstein, Rebecca Bernstien, Paul Bonner, Jr., Gardner Botsford, Clement Brace, Frederic Bradlee, Fanny Brennan, Heywood Hale Broun, Joseph Bryan III, John Carlyle, Lester Cole, Dorothy Commins, Marc Connelly, Norman Corwin, Malcolm Cowley, Alyce Cusson, John Davies, Helen Walker Day, Sylvia Statt DeBaun, Lucinda Dietz, Harvey Deneroff, Helen Deutsch, Eric Devine, Rita Devine, Honoria and William Donnelly.
Anne Edelman, Henry Ephron, Arpad Fekete, Leslie Fiedler, Ben Finney, Moe Fishman, Nina Foch, Sally Foster, Pie Friendly, Arnold Gates, Bernard Geis, Martha Gellhorn, Brendan Gill, Margalo Gillmore, Ruth Goetz, Frances Goodrich, Milton Greenstein, Thomas Guinzburg, Albert Hackett, Emily Hahn, Curtis Harnack, Harold Hayes, Sig Herzig, Rust Hills, Henry Beetle Hough, Ian Hunter, Mary M. James, Gordon G. Jones.
E. J. Kahn, Jr., Virginia Rice Kahn, Eleanor Kairalla, Donald Klopfer, Howard Koch, Don Koll, Parker Ladd, Ring Lardner, Jr., Geraldine Leder, Queenie Leonard, Clara Lester, Miranda and Ralph Levy, Phebe Ann Lewis, Michael Loeb, Joshua Logan, William Lord, Nancy Macdonald, Gertrude Macy, Bob Magner, Chris Marconi, Sister Miriam Martin, Samuel Marx, Bruce Mason, Walter Matthau, Vera Maxwell, William Maxwell, Mary McDonald, Laura McLaughlin, Mickey Medinz, Paul Millard, J. Clifford Miller, Jr., Alice Leone Moats, Betty Moodie, Dr. Christopher Morren, Wright Morris, Cathy Morrow, Kate Mostel, Lewis Mumford, Alice Lee Myers.
Adeline Naiman, Robert Nathan, Anne Noll, Paul O’Dwyer, Emily Paley, Judith and Lewis Parker, Paul Pascarelli, Kenneth Pitchford, Robert Phelps, Noel Pugh, Ben Rayburn, Dame Flora Robson, Dorothy Rodgers, Helen Rosen, Peg Ross, Robert Rothwell, Yvonne Luff-Roussel.
Allen Saalburg, Joseph Schrank, Lee Schryver, Budd Schulberg, Jim Seligmann, Madeline Sherwood, Frederick Shroyer, Steven Siegel, Stan Silverman, Sisters of Charity, Frances Scott Fitzgerald Smith, Toni Strassman, Shepperd Strudwick, Pete Steffens, Leland Stowe, Bob Tallman, William Targ, Marian Spitzer Thompson, Helen Thurber, Helen Townsend, Lester Trauch, Harriet Walden, James Waters, Robert Weinberg, E. B. White, Robert Whitehead, Elinor Wikler, Richard Wilbur, Meta Carpenter Wilde, Dr. Susan Williamson, Noel Willman, Jeanne Ballot Winham, Mildred Wohlforth, Dana Woodbury, Robert Yaw III, Naomi Yergin, Curt Yeske, Lois Moran Young, Jerome Zerbe.