Algonquin Round Table

A group of writers, editors, playwrights and various hangers-on who met for lunch at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City between 1919 and 1934, talking about their work, trading jibes, and becoming the American cultural phenomenon of the 1920s. It began as a public relations event, but grew to become the single most exclusive social event in the city, to which people would do almost anything to be invited.

The most famous Round Tablers were Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott, Robert Benchley, George S. Kaufman, Jerome Kern, and Robert E. Sherwood, but over the decade-and-change that the Round Table was in the spotlight, literally hundreds of people took their places at the table and took their chances against the withering wit of people like Woollcott and Parker.

For more on the Round Table, see Wit's End by James R. Gaines (Harcourt Brace Javonovich, 1977).

During the 1920s, the Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan was home to frequent meetings of the group known as "The Algonquin Round Table". This group of critics, columnists, and essayists met for acerbic conversation about the daily happenings well-known personalities, of which they counted among themselves. Franklin P. Adams, Harold Ross, Heywood Broun, Alexander Woollcott, Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Robert E. Sherwood, James Thurber, Edna Ferber, and George S. Kaufman were among the New York "wits" who held daily lunch meetings to exchange wicked quips and insults, most of which ended up apperaring in print in somebody's column or essay.

There was a movie about the "Vicious Circle" which was released a few years ago..."Dorothy Parker and the Vicious Circle". While the movie mostly centered around Ms. Parker's destructive personality, it was a pretty good insight into the what Edmund Wilson referred to as the "all-star literary vaudeville".