The 1880s had Ward McAllister, the courtly gentleman who’d burst onto the New York scene from Savannah, Georgia, and invented “the Four Hundred” out of thin air. The 1910s had Harry “King” Lehr, the court jester from Baltimore who’d picked up McAllister’s mantle after it was stripped from him in disgrace. But the 1960s had Truman Capote, the “Tiny Terror” from New Orleans with the poison pen.
