The Woollcott Reader

by Alexander Woollcott

An anthology of some of Alexander Woollcott's favorite short fiction by Barrie, Anthony Hope, Thornton Wilder, Saki, Evelyn Waugh, and others, with a foreword, afterword, and commentary on each story, by Woollcott.

1011 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1935

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

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only read a few selections completely. Several (My Little Boy Barrie's Margaret Ogilvy, Lytton Stratchey's biography of Cardinal Manning, Alverdes the The Whistlers' Room, Mr. Fortune's Maggot, Bar Sinister -- ugh animal cruelty plus anthropomorphic snobbery amongst animals, stupid) I tried and didn't take to, others (A Handful of Dust) I own as separate volumes already.

I enjoyed the Dolly Dialogues very much, and will probably get around to more Saki after the brief taste provided by "The Schartz-Metterklume Method".

Kamongo or, The Lungfish and the Padre was interesting in a technical sort of way. I'll review it under its own title.

My impression of Woolcott had always been that he was a good, clever writer but rather an asshole. That's probably true, but I feel more warmly toward anyone who loves books as clearly as he does. (On A Doctor of the Old School: "I am so given to... pressing it into the hands of some neighbor to whom I wish I could be more akin, that there is no copy left for me when I feel the need of it.")

Further reading, some familiar and some not, is extensively suggested in the Foreward and Envoy. Books the "incorrigibly miscellaneous" Woollcott would have included given infinite space and no copy-right laws:
A Lost Lady
God and My Father
Good-Bye, Mr. Chips
An Habitation Enforced
War and Peace
The Brothers Karamazov
"one of the more ruffianly yarns of master Dashiell Hammett"
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
The Early Life of Charles James Fox
Wuthering Heights
Viva Mexico
Pride and Prejudice
Emma
The Princess Casamassima
Gentle Julia
A Christmas Carol
The Forest Lovers
The History of Mr. Polly
Sophomores Abroad
All Kneeling
Vile Bodies
Black Mischief
The Loom of Youth

Then, I wanted...

[Lisa of Troy]

Unannotated Book in F. Scott Fitzgerald's College of One