Books
- Mrs Fiske: Her views on Actors, Acting and the Problems of Production (1917) - Minnie Maddern Fiske (1865–1932) was one of the foremost actresses of her day. Woollcott's first book is a study of her thoughts on the acting profession.
- The Command is Forward (1919) - A collection of his reportage and essays from Stars and Stripes.
- Shouts and Murmurs (1922) - Theatre articles. His column in The New Yorker was named after this book. The New Yorker revived the title as a catch-all for humorous pieces in the 1990s.
- Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play (1922) - A few chapters by Woollcott on Charles Dickens's love of the theatre and a great many reprinted selections from Dickens's writings.
- Enchanted Aisles (1924) - More theatre articles.
- The Story of Irving Berlin (1925) - The rags-to-riches story of the great composer.
- Going to Pieces (1928) - More stories of Woollcott's friends in and out of the theatre.
- Two Gentlemen and a Lady (1928) - A short book about dogs.
- While Rome Burns (1934) - It was Thornton Wilder who convinced Woollcott that his work was important enough to deserve reissue in book form. While Rome Burns was a surprise bestseller and further cemented Woollcott's reputation nationally. It is light reading but includes much that is amusing or quaint and one very fine piece, "Hands Across the Sea," about justice during the war. The book also contains "The Mystery of the Hansom Cab," Woollcott's account of the infamous Nan Patterson case. In 2008, The Library of America selected the piece for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime.
- The Woollcott Reader (1935) - An anthology of works by other writers that Woollcott felt deserved the public's attention. The pieces run several gamuts, from treacly biography to acid modernism.
- Woollcott's Second Reader (1937) - More of the same.
- Long, Long Ago (1943) - Issued just after his death, this follows in the steps of While Rome Burns but is not as good. The decline in his prose, as other interests drew on his time, is evident. Still, there are some amusing pieces, and it became another bestseller.
- As You Were (1943) - An anthology of other people's works, compiled by Woollcott for issue to servicemen in the Second World War. It is dedicated to Frode Jensen, a young Danish man whom Woollcott befriended and who was the closest to a son as Woollcott ever had.
- The Letters of Alexander Woollcott (1944) - A collection of his voluminous correspondence compiled by two of his dearest friends, Beatrice Kaufman and Joe Hennessey.
- The Portable Woollcott (1946) - An anthology of the best of Woollcott's writings.
Read more about this topic: Alexander Woollcott
Famous quotes containing the word books:
“I am an inveterate homemaker, it is at once my pleasure, my recreation, and my handicap. Were I a man, my books would have been written in leisure, protected by a wife and a secretary and various household officials. As it is, being a woman, my work has had to be done between bouts of homemaking.”
—Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973)
“An author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)
“Postmodernism is, almost by definition, a transitional cusp of social, cultural, economic and ideological history when modernism’s high-minded principles and preoccupations have ceased to function, but before they have been replaced with a totally new system of values. It represents a moment of suspension before the batteries are recharged for the new millennium, an acknowledgment that preceding the future is a strange and hybrid interregnum that might be called the last gasp of the past.”
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)