The New Yorker

The New Yorker

File:Original New Yorker cover.png First issue's cover with dandy]] Eustace Tilley, created by Rea Irvin]]. The image, or a variation of it, appears on the cover of The New Yorker with every anniversary issue.
Editor	David Remnick]]
Categories	Politics]], social issues]], art]], humor]], culture]]
Frequency	47 per year
Publisher	Condé Nast]]
Total circulation (December 2013)	1,055,542
First issue	February 21, 1925
Company	Advance Publications]]
Country	United States
Based in	New York City]]
Website	[1]
ISSN	0028-792X
OCLC number	320541675

The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It is published by Condé Nast]]. Started as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is now published 47 times annually, with five of these issues covering two-week spans.

Although its reviews and events listings often focus on the cultural life of New York City]], The New Yorker has a wide audience outside of New York. It is well known for its illustrated and often topical covers, its commentaries on Popular culture and eccentric Americana]], its attention to modern fiction]] by the inclusion of Short story|short stories]] and literary reviews]], its rigorous Fact checker|fact checking]] and copyediting]], its journalism]] on politics and social issues]], and its single-panel cartoon]]s sprinkled throughout each issue.

History

The New Yorker debuted on February 21, 1925. It was founded by Harold Ross]] and his wife, Jane Grant]], a New York Times reporter. Ross wanted to create a sophisticated humor magazine that would be different from perceivably "corny" humor publications such as Judge (magazine)|Judge]], where he had worked, or Life (magazine)|Life]]. Ross partnered with entrepreneur Raoul H. Fleischmann (who founded the General Baking Company) to establish the F-R Publishing Company and established the magazine's first offices at 25 West 45th Street in Manhattan]]. Ross edited the magazine until his death in 1951. During the early, occasionally precarious years of its existence, the magazine prided itself on its cosmopolitan sophistication. Ross famously declared in a 1925 prospectus for the magazine: "It has announced that it is not edited for the old lady in Dubuque, Iowa|Dubuque]]."

Although the magazine never lost its touches of humor, it soon established itself as a pre-eminent forum for serious fiction]] literature]] and journalism. Shortly after the end of World War II, John Hersey]]'s essay Hiroshima (book)|Hiroshima]] filled an entire issue. In subsequent decades the magazine published short stories by many of the most respected writers of the 20th and 21st centuries, including Ann Beattie]], Mavis Gallant]], John Cheever]], Roald Dahl]], Geoffrey T. Hellman|Geoffrey Hellman]], John McNulty (journalist)|John McNulty]], Alice Munro]], Haruki Murakami]], Vladimir Nabokov]], John O'Hara]], Philip Roth]], J. D. Salinger]], Irwin Shaw]], James Thurber]], John Updike]], Eudora Welty]], E. B. White]] and Truman Capote]]. Publication of Shirley Jackson]]'s "The Lottery]]" drew more mail than any other story in the magazine's history.

In its early decades, the magazine sometimes published two or even three short stories a week, but in recent years the pace has remained steady at one story per issue. While some styles and themes recur more often than others in its fiction, the stories are marked less by uniformity than by variety, and they have ranged from Updike's introspective domestic narratives to the surrealism of Donald Barthelme]], and from parochial accounts of the lives of neurotic New Yorkers to stories set in a wide range of locations and eras and translated from many languages. Writers like Kurt Vonnegut]] said that The New Yorker has been an effective institution for getting a large audience through the learning process required for appreciating modern literature. Kurt Vonnegut's 1974 interview with Joe David Bellamy and John Casey, published in The New Fiction and in Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut, contained a discussion of The New Yorker's influence:

One thing we used to talk about – when I was out in Iowa – was that the limiting factor is the reader. No other art requires the audience to be a performer. You have to count on the reader's being a good performer, and you may write music which he absolutely can't perform – in which case it's a bust. Those writers you mentioned and myself are teaching an audience how to play this kind of music in their heads. It's a learning process, and The New Yorker has been a very good institution of the sort needed. They have a captive audience, and they come out every week, and people finally catch on to Barthelme, for instance, and are able to perform that sort of thing in their heads and enjoy it. I think the same is true of S. J. Perelman; I do not think that Perelman would be appreciated if suddenly his collected works were to be published now to be seen for the first time. It would be gibberish. A learning process is required to appreciate Perelman, although it's very easy to do once you learn how to do it. Yeah, I think the readers are coming along; that's a problem; I think writers have tried to do it always and have failed because there's been no audience for what they've done; nobody's performed their music.

The non-fiction feature articles (which usually make up the bulk of the magazine's content) cover an eclectic array of topics. Recent subjects have included eccentric evangelist Creflo Dollar]], the different ways in which humans perceive the passage of time, and Münchausen syndrome by proxy]].

The magazine is notable for its editorial traditions. Under the rubric Profiles, it publishes articles about notable people such as Ernest Hemingway]], Henry Luce|Henry R. Luce]] and Marlon Brando]], Hollywood restaurateur Michael Romanoff]], magician Ricky Jay]] and mathematicians Chudnovsky brothers|David and Gregory Chudnovsky]]. Other enduring features have been "Goings on About Town", a listing of cultural and entertainment events in New York, and "The Talk of the Town", a miscellany of brief pieces—frequently humorous, whimsical or eccentric vignettes of life in New York—written in a breezily light style, or feuilleton]], although in recent years the section often begins with a serious commentary. For many years, newspaper snippets containing amusing errors, unintended meanings or badly mixed metaphors ("Block That Metaphor") have been used as filler items, accompanied by a witty retort. There is no masthead listing the editors and staff. And despite some changes, the magazine has kept much of its traditional appearance over the decades in typography, layout, covers and artwork. The magazine was acquired by Advance Publications]], the media company owned by Samuel Irving Newhouse, Jr.]], in 1985.

Ross was succeeded as editor by William Shawn]] (1951–1987), followed by Robert Gottlieb]] (1987–1992) and Tina Brown]] (1992–1998). Among the important nonfiction authors who began writing for the magazine during Shawn's editorship were Dwight Macdonald]], Kenneth Tynan]], and Hannah Arendt]]; to a certain extent all three authors were controversial, Arendt the most obviously so (her Eichmann in Jerusalem reportage appeared in the magazine before it was published as a book), but in each case Shawn proved an active champion.

Brown's nearly six-year tenure attracted more controversy than Gottlieb's or even Shawn's, thanks to her high profile (Shawn, by contrast, had been an extremely shy, introverted figure) and the changes which she made to a magazine that had retained a similar look and feel for the previous half-century. She introduced color to the editorial pages (several years before The New York Times) and photography, with less type on each page and a generally more modern layout. More substantively, she increased the coverage of current events and hot topics such as celebrities and business tycoons, and placed short pieces throughout "Goings on About Town", including a racy column about nightlife in Manhattan. A new letters-to-the-editor page and the addition of authors’ bylines to their "Talk of the Town" pieces had the effect of making the magazine more personal. The current editor of The New Yorker is David Remnick]], who succeeded Brown in 1998.

Tom Wolfe]] wrote about the magazine: "The New Yorker style was one of leisurely meandering understatement, droll when in the humorous mode, tautological and litotical when in the serious mode, constantly amplified, qualified, adumbrated upon, nuanced and renuanced, until the magazine’s pale-gray pages became High Baroque triumphs of the relative clause and appository modifier".

Joseph Rosenblum, reviewing Ben Yagoda]]'s About Town, a history of the magazine from 1925 to 1985, wrote, "... The New Yorker did create its own universe. As one longtime reader wrote to Yagoda, this was a place 'where Peter DeVries]] ... [sic] was forever lifting a glass of Piesporter]], where Niccolò Tucci]] (in a plum velvet dinner jacket]]) flirted in Italian with Muriel Spark]], where Nabokov sipped tawny Port wine|port]] from a prismatic goblet (while a Vanessa atalanta|Red Admirable]] perched on his pinky), and where John Updike tripped over the master's Swiss shoes, excusing himself charmingly".

As far back as the 1940s the magazine's commitment to Fact checker|fact-checking]] was already well known. Yet the magazine played a role in a literary scandal and defamation lawsuit over two 1990s articles by Janet Malcolm]], who wrote about Sigmund Freud]]'s legacy. Questions were raised about the magazine's fact-checking process. As of 2010, The New Yorker employs 16 fact checkers. In July 2011, the magazine was sued for defamation in United States district court]] for a July 12, 2010 article written by David Grann, but the case was summarily dismissed.

Since the late 1990s, The New Yorker has used the Internet to publish current and archived material. It maintains a website with some content from the current issue (plus exclusive web-only content). Subscribers have access to the full current issue online, as well as a complete archive of back issues viewable as they were originally printed. In addition, The New Yorker's cartoons are available for purchase online. A digital archive of back issues from 1925 to April 2008 (representing more than 4,000 issues and half a million pages) has also been issued on DVD-ROMs and on a small portable hard drive. More recently, an iPad version of the current issue of the magazine has been released.

In its November 1, 2004 issue, the magazine for the first time endorsed a presidential candidate, choosing to endorse John Kerry]] over George W. Bush]]. This was continued in 2008 when the magazine endorsed Barack Obama]] over John McCain]], and in 2012 when it endorsed Obama over Mitt Romney]].

Change of ownership

In 1984 the magazine was acquired by Samuel Irving Newhouse, Jr.|Samuel Newhouse]] and became part of his media empire, Advance Publications]].

Cartoons

The New Yorker has featured cartoons (usually gag cartoon]]s) since it began publication in 1925. The cartoon editor of The New Yorker for years was Lee Lorenz]], who first began cartooning in 1956 and became a New Yorker contract contributor in 1958. After serving as the magazine's art editor from 1973 to 1993 (when he was replaced by Françoise Mouly]]), he continued in the position of cartoon editor until 1998. His book, The Art of the New Yorker: 1925–1995 (Knopf, 1995), was the first comprehensive survey of all aspects of the magazine's graphics. In 1998, Robert Mankoff]] took over as cartoon editor, and since then Mankoff has edited at least 14 collections of New Yorker cartoons. In addition, Mankoff usually contributes a short article to each book, describing some aspect of the cartooning process or the methods used to select cartoons for the magazine.

The New Yorker's stable of cartoonists has included many important talents in American humor, including Charles Addams]], Peter Arno]], Charles Barsotti]], George Booth (cartoonist)|George Booth]], Roz Chast]], Tom Cheney (cartoonist)|Tom Cheney]], Sam Cobean]], Leo Cullum]], Richard Decker]], Helen E. Hokinson]], Ed Koren]], Reginald Marsh (artist)|Reginald Marsh]], Mary Petty]], George Price (New Yorker cartoonist)|George Price]], Charles Saxon]], David Snell (journalist)|David Snell]], Otto Soglow]], Saul Steinberg]], William Steig]], Richard Taylor, James Thurber]], Pete Holmes]], Barney Tobey and Gahan Wilson]].

Many early New Yorker cartoonists did not caption their own cartoons. In his book The Years with Ross, Thurber describes the newspaper's weekly art meeting, where cartoons submitted over the previous week would be brought up from the mail room to be gone over by Ross, the editorial department and a number of staff writers. Cartoons would often be rejected or sent back to artists with requested amendments, while others would be accepted and captions written for them. Some artists hired their own writers; Helen Hokinson hired James Reid Parker in 1931. (Brendan Gill]] relates in his book Here at The New Yorker that at one point in the early 1940s, the quality of the artwork submitted to the magazine seemed to improve. It was later found out that the office boy (a teenaged Truman Capote]]) had been acting as a volunteer art editor, dropping pieces he didn't like down the far edge of his desk.)

Several of the magazine's cartoons have climbed to a higher plateau of fame. One 1928 cartoon drawn by Carl Rose (cartoonist)|Carl Rose]] and captioned by E. B. White]] shows a mother telling her daughter, "It's broccoli, dear." The daughter responds, "I say it's spinach and I say the hell with it." The phrase "I say it's spinach]]" entered the vernacular (and three years later, the Broadway musical Face the Music included Irving Berlin]]'s musical number titled "I Say It's Spinach (And The Hell With It)]]"). The Catchphrase "wikt:back to the drawing board|back to the drawing board]]" originated with the 1941 Peter Arno cartoon showing an engineer walking away from a crashed plane, saying, "Well, back to the old drawing board."

The most reprinted is Peter Steiner (cartoonist)|Peter Steiner]]'s 1993 drawing of two dogs at a computer, with one saying, "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog]]". According to Mankoff, Steiner and the magazine have split more than $100,000 in fees paid for the licensing and reprinting of this single cartoon, with more than half going to Steiner.

Over seven decades, many hardcover compilations of cartoons from The New Yorker have been published, and in 2004, Mankoff edited The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker, a 656-page collection with 2004 of the magazine's best cartoons published during 80 years, plus a double CD set with all 68,647 cartoons ever published in the magazine. This features a search function allowing readers to search for cartoons by a cartoonist's name or by year of publication. The newer group of cartoonists in recent years includes Pat Byrnes]], Frank Cotham, Michael Crawford, Joe Dator, Drew Dernavich, J. C. Duffy]], Carolita Johnson, Zachary Kanin, Farley Katz, Robert Leighton (cartoonist)|Robert Leighton]], Glen Le Lievre, Michael Maslin, Ariel Molvig, Paul Noth, Barbara Smaller, David Sipress, Mick Stevens, Julia Suits]], Christopher Weyant, P. C. Vey]], and Jack Ziegler. The notion that some New Yorker cartoons have punchlines so Non sequitur (absurdism)|non sequitur]] that they are impossible to understand became a subplot in the Seinfeld episode "The Cartoon]]", as well as a playful jab in an episode of The Simpsons]], "The Sweetest Apu]]".

In April 2005, the magazine began using the last page of each issue for "The New Yorker Cartoon Caption contest|Caption Contest]]". Captionless cartoons by The New Yorker's regular cartoonists are printed each week. Captions are submitted by readers, and three are chosen as finalists. Readers then vote on the winner, and any resident of the US, UK, Australia, Ireland or Canada (except Quebec) age 18 or older can vote. Each contest winner receives a print of the cartoon (with the winning caption), signed by the artist who drew the cartoon.

Eustace Tilley

File:Alfred D’Orsay.png|thumb|150px|right|Image of Alfred d'Orsay|Count d'Orsay]], published by James Baillie Fraser|James Fraser]].]] The magazine's first cover illustration, a dandy]] peering at a butterfly through a monocle]], was drawn by Rea Irvin]], the magazine's first art editor, based on an 1834 caricature of the then Alfred Guillaume Gabriel, Count d'Orsay|Count d'Orsay]] which appeared as an illustration in the 11th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica]]. The gentleman on the original cover, now referred to as "Eustace Tilley", is a character created by Corey Ford]] for The New Yorker. The hero of a series entitled "The Making of a Magazine", which began on the inside front cover of the August 8 issue that first summer, Tilley was a younger man than the figure on the original cover. His top hat was of a newer style, without the curved brim. He wore a morning coat]] and striped trousers. Ford borrowed Eustace Tilley's last name from an aunt—he had always found it vaguely humorous. "Eustace" was selected for Phonaesthetics|euphony]], although Ford may have borrowed the name from Eustace Taylor, his fraternity brother from Delta Kappa Epsilon]] at Columbia College of Columbia University]].

The character has become a kind of Mascot for The New Yorker, frequently appearing in its pages and on promotional materials. Traditionally, Rea Irvin's original Tilley cover illustration is used every year on the issue closest to the anniversary date of February 21, though on several occasions a newly drawn variation has been substituted.

In the Movie "42nd Street " (1933), character Dorothy Brock (Bebe Daniels]]) is seen holding the New Yorker magazine with Eustace Tilley on the cover. This occurs in the fifth minute of the movie.

See also

• List of The New Yorker contributors]]

External links

• The New Yorker official website
• Official mobile site
• A Guided Tour Through The New Yorker
• Boxer, Sarah. "A Gaggle of Cartoonists," The New York Times, February 14, 2000.
• How to Submit Cartoons to The New Yorker
• New Yorker 1950–1955 album
• New Yorker Fiction Database 1925-2013

Category:American literary magazines]] Category:American news magazines]] Category:Condé Nast]] Category:Investigative journalism]] Category:Magazines published in New York City]] Category:The New Yorker| ]] Category:Publications established in 1925]] Category:Weekly magazines]]