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Lead book review

America’s greatest magazine — at its greatest

There are plenty of good stories about the legendary New Yorker in its heyday, but sadly Thomas Vinciguerra is no storyteller

2 January 2016

9:00 AM

2 January 2016

9:00 AM

Cast of Characters: Wolcott Gibbs, E.B. White, James Thurber and the Golden Age of the New Yorker Thomas Vinciguerra

W.W. Norton, pp.464, £18.99

The New Yorker, not far off its centenary now, has moved beyond rivalry to a position of supremacy among American magazines. It has attained this not by taking a particular political position, although it certainly has one — it represents, obviously, a metro-politan, liberal, outward-facing attitude to the world. Rather, its pre-eminence is down to its valuing, above all, the quality of writing.

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