Dorothy Parker
Algonquin Round Table, New Yorker Wit, Short Stories
The Wittiest Leo
Dorothy Parker was the sharpest wit at the sharpest table in American literary history — the Algonquin Round Table, where she lunched with Robert Benchley, George S. Kaufman, and Alexander Woollcott. Her book reviews could end careers with a sentence. Her short stories are masterpieces of compressed emotion. Her life was as tragic as her wit was bright.
Leo Legacy
- Algonquin Round Table: Founding member of New York’s most famous literary gathering
- New Yorker: Staff writer and book reviewer — her reviews are still read as literature
- Big Blonde: 1929 short story — won the O. Henry Prize
- NAACP donation: Left her estate to Martin Luther King Jr. and then the NAACP
Parker’s Leo wit was a weapon she turned on everyone, including herself — and herself most devastatingly.
“I hate writing, I love having written.”