title: The 40s: The Story of a Decade (New Yorker: The Story of a Decade)
author: The New Yorker Magazine
description: *Starred Review* This is on its face an anthology of writings from one magazinethe New Yorkerover the course of a single decade. In fact, it is the record of an exceptional magazine fully coming into its own under the editorship of Harold Ross during a crucial decade, constituting a history of a pivotal, war-torn period told through its (artfully selected) pages, an absolutely breathtaking assemblage of some of Americas finest and most lasting writing. It includes (for starters) war reportage by A. J. Liebling, Janet Flanner, and, in its powerful entirety, John Herseys Hiroshima; postwar Europe as seen by Edmund Wilson and Lillian Ross; commentary on the American scene by E. B. White and Joseph Mitchell; portraits of some of the eras most extraordinary individuals by journalists of commensurate stature; criticism, including David Lardner on Casablanca, Wolcott Gibbs on Death of a Salesman, and Lionel Trilling, brilliantly, on Orwells 1984; poetry by Auden, William Carlos Williams, and Langston Hughes; fiction by Cheever, Nabokov, McCullers, Irwin Shaw, and Shirley Jackson; plus fashion, music, art, and architecture (Lewis Mumford spectacularly wrong about Rockefeller Center). Each section is introduced by one of todays contributors (Zadie Smith on Fiction is particularly good), with the whole introduced by New Yorker editor David Remnick. Time, one supposes, will determine how these new names measure up to their predecessors, but the bar is set impossibly high. This is magnificent stuff, a cornucopia of truly distinguished literature, a near-perfect gift to give and an entirely ideal one to receive. --Mark Levine
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  Copyright © 2014 by The New Yorker Magazine  
  Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Simone Massoni
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint and division of
  Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
  
  RANDOM HOUSE and the House colophon are registered trademarks of Random House
  LLC.
  
  All pieces in this collection, except as noted, were originally published in
  _The New Yorker._
  
  The publication dates are given at the beginning or end of each piece.
  
  Letter reprinted by permission of The Shirley Jackson Papers, Manuscript
  Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
  
  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA  
  The 40s: the story of a decade / The New Yorker; edited by Henry Finder  
  with Giles Harvey; introduction by David Remnick.  
  pages cm  
  ISBN 978-0-679-64479-8  
  eBook ISBN 978-0-679-64480-4  
  1\. United States—History—1933–1945. 2. United States—History—1945–1