The Portable Woollcott

by Alexander Woollcott, Joseph Hennessey (Editor), John Mason Brown (Introduction)

This early work by Alexander Woollcott was originally published in 1946 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'The Portable Woollcott' is a posthumously published anthology of the best of Woollcotts writings. Alexander Humphreys Woollcott was born on the 19th January, 1887 in New Jersey, America and was a critic and commentator for The New Yorker magazine. One of New York's most prolific drama critics, Woollcott was an owlish character whose caustic wit either joyously attracted or vehemently repelled the artistic communities of 1920s Manhattan.

Genres: Nonfiction

735 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1946

About the author

Alexander Humphreys Woollcott (1887-1943) was an American drama critic and commentator for The New Yorker magazine, a member of the Algonquin Round Table, an occasional actor and playwright, and a prominent radio personality.

Reviews

[Marfita · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a compendium of over 700 pages of essays, legends, true crime, radio transcripts, reviews of plays and books (supplying me with some new reading material!), which took me a couple of months to finish relishing at bedtime. It includes an old favorite, "Entrance Fee" wherein a cadet at Saint-Cyr wins the pool to spend the night with France's most desirable (and expensive - to the tune of 5,000 francs) femme and when learning of this scam, the woman, delighted by the compliment and stricken by the expense for a poor student, graciously "returns his money." Wonderful story! I remember laughing at it at a surprisingly young age - perhaps 13.
Also in here is the Holy Grail of the "Believe It Or Not"s - perhaps inspiration for that Indiana Jones thingie, an essay on how in his own land the architect/philosopher gets no respect - "The Prodigal Father," "I Might As Well Have Played Hooky" - about success without formal education (and Harpo's first and only harp lesson), "Perfectly Gone" - a paean to youth's wide-eyed wonder, and the story of "The Sage of Fountain Inn" that intrigued me because I live quite near a town of that name - only to discover that it was that self-same town!
All of this is in Woollcott's sweetly tortured and antiquated prose that lends a mellifluous nostalgia to the whole biz. Does anyone write like this anymore?
I return this musty and fragile volume to the library, fearful that it will get the axe for not being pretty enough, never to be replaced, and our town will lose a (if tattily) beribboned box of bon-bons that continues to satisfy even if you get one of those horrid coconut ones I always hated. Ummm, block that metaphor.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woollcott was a raconteur of unmatched skill, and I can't count the number of times I laughed out loud while reading this collection. It's a very dense book (over 700 pages in a small volume), and so it was one I picked up and put down several times, but it is rather perfectly designed for just such a reading style. The anecdotes and articles are all short and generally entirely self-contained, so it is perfect for a quick pick-me-up read.

I adore Woollcott's use of language- he was quite a wordsmith, and I may have to adopt several of his turns of phrase. He has been accused of recycling his own works over and over again, and that was apparent at times, but said recycling didn't really detract from the work at all.

I wish I could have known the man- I imagine he wasn't an easy person to be friends with, but he can't possibly have ever been boring.