Marion Meade - Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?  

Table of Contents

PENGUIN BOOKS

DOROTHY PARKER

Marion Meade has written a widely acclaimed biography, Eleanor of Aquitaine , and a novel entitled Stealing Heaven: The Love Story of Heloise and Abelard. She lives in Manhattan.

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First published in the United States of America by Villard Books,
A division of Random House, Inc. 1988

Published in Penguin Books 1989

Copyright Marion Meade, 1987, 2006

All rights reserved

Grateful acknowledgment is made to The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Eslate of Dorothy Parker for permission to reprint excerpts from various materials by Dorothy Parker including letters, poems, untitled verse and speeches. Copyright The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Estate of Dorothy Parker. Acknowletlgment is made to the following libraries for permission to reprint material from their collections : The University of Chicago Library, Department of Special Collections; The Bancroft Library, University of California., Berkeley, Thomas J. Mooney Papers (C-B 410); The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, Collection of American Literature; Columbia University Oral History Research Office, Copyright Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York; The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection; Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania, the Burton Rascoe Collection, Department of Special Collections; the Harry Ransom Collection; Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania, the Button Rascoe Collection, Department of Special Collections; the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the University of Texas at Austin; Dallas Public Library, the Margo Jones Collection; The Newbeny Library, Malcolm Cowley Papers; Princeton University Library, F. Scott Fitzgerald Collection, Box 51; Fales Library, New York University; The Houghton Library, Harvard University; Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Arnold Gingrich Papers, Michigan Historical Collections; The John F. Kennedy Library, Bostn, Massachusetts, the Ernest Hemingway Collection; Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the George Lorimer Paper, Robert Benchley material

Page 460 constitutes an extension of this copyright page .

Calligraphy by Gun Larson

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Meade, Marion, 1934
Dorothy Parker: what fresh hell is this?/Marion Meade.
p. cm.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.

eISBN : 978-1-101-46219-5

Parker, Dorothy, 1893-1967Biography. 2. Authors,
American20th centuryBiography. 1. Title.
[PS3531.A5855Z77 1989]
818.5209dcl9
[R] 88-23782

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FOR ALISON LINKHORN

Acknowledgments

Since Dorothy Parker herself left no correspondence, manuscripts, memorabilia, or private papers of any kind, I have had to reconstruct her life by talking to those who knew her and by retrieving material from various institutions, attics, trunks, and the personal files of people who considered her letters worth preserving.

Throughout her life she was secretive about her origins and gave the impression that she had no family ties whatsoever, even though her close relationship with her sister, Helen, lasted a lifetime. This biography was written with the cooperation of Lel Droste Iveson, Dorothy Parkers niece, who generously shared with me memories of her aunt and details of the familys history, as well as Parkers childhood letters, verse, and a scrapbookphoto album compiled over the course of many years. She has my deepest gratitude. I also would like to thank other members of the family who have been of tremendous help to me: Joan Grossman, Robert Iveson, Marge Droste, and Nancy Arcaro. Special thanks to Susan Cotton for the loan of the album.

Roy Eichel, the only surviving member of Alan Campbells family, offered me photographs, reminiscences spanning nine decades, and the hospitality of his home. His wonderful cooperation was altogether a biographers dream.

Many persons have contributed to this biography. They shared their recollections in interviews, telephone conversations, and letters; they took considerable trouble to locate photographs and correspondence, search for sheet music, draw maps, conduct tours of their homes, prepare meals, and guide me to sources I might otherwise have not known about. Without their generous assistance this book would not exist. To all of them I am greatly indebted:

Timothy Adams, Charles Addams, Stella Adler, Louisa Alger, Vera Allen, Bill Allyn, Roger Angell, Andrew Anspach, Patricia Arno, Louis Auchincloss, Julian Bach, Don Bachardy, Lisa Bain, Shirley Booth Baker, Fredericka Barbour, Margaret Barker, Vita Barsky, Charles Baskerville, Lois Battle, Saul Bellow, Nathaniel Benchley, Leonard Bernstein, Rebecca Bernstien, Paul Bonner, Jr., Gardner Botsford, Clement Brace, Frederic Bradlee, Fanny Brennan, Heywood Hale Broun, Joseph Bryan III, John Carlyle, Lester Cole, Dorothy Commins, Marc Connelly, Norman Corwin, Malcolm Cowley, Alyce Cusson, John Davies, Helen Walker Day, Sylvia Statt DeBaun, Lucinda Dietz, Harvey Deneroff, Helen Deutsch, Eric Devine, Rita Devine, Honoria and William Donnelly.

Anne Edelman, Henry Ephron, Arpad Fekete, Leslie Fiedler, Ben Finney, Moe Fishman, Nina Foch, Sally Foster, Pie Friendly, Arnold Gates, Bernard Geis, Martha Gellhorn, Brendan Gill, Margalo Gillmore, Ruth Goetz, Frances Goodrich, Milton Greenstein, Thomas Guinzburg, Albert Hackett, Emily Hahn, Curtis Harnack, Harold Hayes, Sig Herzig, Rust Hills, Henry Beetle Hough, Ian Hunter, Mary M. James, Gordon G. Jones.

E. J. Kahn, Jr., Virginia Rice Kahn, Eleanor Kairalla, Donald Klopfer, Howard Koch, Don Koll, Parker Ladd, Ring Lardner, Jr., Geraldine Leder, Queenie Leonard, Clara Lester, Miranda and Ralph Levy, Phebe Ann Lewis, Michael Loeb, Joshua Logan, William Lord, Nancy Macdonald, Gertrude Macy, Bob Magner, Chris Marconi, Sister Miriam Martin, Samuel Marx, Bruce Mason, Walter Matthau, Vera Maxwell, William Maxwell, Mary McDonald, Laura McLaughlin, Mickey Medinz, Paul Millard, J. Clifford Miller, Jr., Alice Leone Moats, Betty Moodie, Dr. Christopher Morren, Wright Morris, Cathy Morrow, Kate Mostel, Lewis Mumford, Alice Lee Myers.