Letters from the Editor: The New Yorker's Harold Ross

An engaging look at the history of the New Yorker through the founder's own words. A peek into the process of publication of some of the most well-known writers. Famous writers' correspondance with a brutally honest Harold Ross. EXCELLENT!

These letters were my companion as I read "Genius in Disguise", Kunkel's wonderful biography of Harold Ross. The biography tells the story of Ross and his founding and development of The New Yorker. These letters bring Ross to life and convey the personality that spotted and nurtured the talent that made the magazine great. Here's a quick letter to John Cheever in 1947, which gives a little flavor of the man:"Dear Cheever: I've just read "The Enormous Radio," having gone away for a spell and got behind, and I send my respects and admiration. The piece is worth coming back to work for. It will turn out to be a memorable one, or I am a fish. Very wonderful, indeed." As ever, Ross

I've long been a fan of The New Yorker altho the drawings and not the too lengthy articles are my favorites now. Have read most of the books about working at the magazine, but this is the best. Harold Ross had such a way with words. I particularly liked the letter of sympathy to E.B. White (page 97) upon death of White's father: "...after you get to be thirty people you know keep dropping off all the time and it's a hell of a note." And about Christmas: "...it always comes at the very worse moment in the year for me."Here is truly a genius at work. I thought it was ironic also that although he said don't waste time writing letters as you don't get paid for them, he wrote them so well. It is also interesting that the editor of this book finally found some recordings that Ross made and he was dictating letters!I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys The New Yorker and would like to know how it developed over the years.

Even more than Kunkel's brilliant biography "Genius in Disguise," this book offers special insights into "New Yorker" founder and editor Harold Ross, not only a seminal figure in American letters but a sardonic wit reminiscent of H.L. Mencken, one of the people with whom he frequently exchanged letters. (Indeed, the sweep of his correspondence, from "New Yorker" stalwarts like E.B. White and his wife Katherine to Dorothy Parker and James Thurber all the way to John O'Hara, Harpo Marx, various state governors and other polticos, President Truman, and Premier Nehru, is impressive in itself.) While in many of these letters, Ross comes across as that curmudgeon one might expect, there is a touch of tender concern in others that shows you that some of the gruffness was merely a pose--as is his stance as the long-suffering, embattled editor who says he would rather be doing anything else, but who clearly shows he is having the time of his life.The book may be a bit abstruse in places for those who do not know the history of the "New Yorker" during the Ross editorship, but there seems to be enough comedy throughout to maintain even a casual reader's interest. Anyone who has enjoyed "Genius in Disguise" will surely love this book. I guess the greatest complement I can offer is now that I've read Kunkel's two Ross portrayals, I can't wait for his next book.

Ross's legendary gruffness and expansive curiosity are revealed in this wonderful book. Kunkel's superb biography of Ross, "Genius in disguise," deserved this follow-up, in which the subject speaks for himself. He is as lively a letter-writer as ever lived, making one wish that email weren't the washed out modern excuse for correspondence that it so often is. Read it; then go and read the old New Yorkers on microfilm at the university library. Sensational.