Book and Author Luncheon

For more than thirty years, the Book and Author Luncheon provided a forum for authors famous and obscure in one of the largest markets for books in the world, New York City. During the luncheons, authors would provide short lectures and lessons from their lives and literature, while stroking their author egos by basking in the praise of the luncheon's ever-charming hosts. The luncheons began in 1938, and would air on WNYC from 1948 through 1974.

The Book and Author Luncheon was launched in March of 1938. Created and sponsored by the American Booksellers Association, the first two luncheons were hosted by author William Lyon Phelps and critic J. Donald Adams, respectively, at the Essex House on 59th St., at the base of Central Park. Phelps and Adams were esteemed men of letters, representing two of the grandest traditions in the world of literature: Phelps was the Lampson Professor of English Literature at Yale and, having taught the first American university course on the modern novel, was already a legend in academia, while Adams, enjoying the august aegis of the Old Grey Lady's famed masthead, helmed the book review of the most powerful media organization in the City, The New York Times. It would be in its third event of that first season though, held that May, that the luncheon would find its long-running host, Irita Van Doren, and its long-lasting co-sponsor, the New York Herald Tribune.

It was a fortuitous partnership: shortly after its founding, the Tribune’s original book review editor, George Ripley, took it upon himself to establish and maintain a high standard of written composition for the paper, lending a literary sensibility to the Trib’s prose that lasted throughout its existence. That sensibility, combined with Van Doren’s kind and comfortable scholarly largesse, which would temper the Trib’s evident but evolved conservatism, set a standard at the Book and Author Luncheon that would last for all of its 30+ successful seasons.

The series had two hosts during its lengthy run, Van Doren, and Maurice Dolbier. Van Doren was born in Birmingham, Alabama and attended Florida State University, where she studied literature and philosophy. Her gentle demeanor and southern charm (which would remain unabated even after decades removed) joined with her drive for perfection, her sense of intellectual adventure, and her passion for literature to take her to New York to attend graduate school at Columbia University, where her dissertation was entitled “How Shakespeare Got Dead Bodies Off the Stage.” It is unclear if she completed it, but she certainly found plenty to do in her chosen field: In 1924, after a prior stint as literary editor of The Nation, Van Doren landed a job with the Herald Tribune’s literary supplement. In two years she became its editor, a position she held for 37 years. Surprisingly, given her powerful place in New York letters, Van Doren never took to the pen herself, not even to compose her memoirs, despite wide interest and a number of potential publishing suitors. Her preeminence in the literary world was instead based on her shrewd judge of talent, her preternatural understanding of book readers’ interests, and her natural grace and sociability.

Upon Van Doren’s retirement from the Trib in 1963, Dolbier took over the hosting duties, though he had hosted intermittently under her editorship as well. Where Van Doren eschewed authorship, Dolbier embraced it, and with care, authoring six children’s books, including The Magic Bus, and two novels, Benjy Boone and The Mortal Gods, over the course of his literary career. He joined the Herald Tribune in 1956, coming from the Providence Journal-Bulletin, and stayed until the Trib finally folded, in 1966. The Book and Author Luncheons would continue for several years after the Trib’s demise, Dolbier still at the helm, having returned to Providence, with sole sponsorship of the luncheon returning to the American Booksellers Association as the popular series finally ran its course.

WNYC’s involvement with the Book and Author Luncheon began during its eleventh season, in 1948. By that time, it had settled into a natural formula: a short introduction, made within a proper inch of flattery, of the first of the afternoon’s three guests, highlighting her latest work, followed by a brief speech by the author, subject, or performer on her chosen topic, typically her recently published book. Repeat two times. End. The events were held in front of a commonly capacity audience assembled in one of the grand halls of the Waldorf Astoria. The speakers were selected by Van Doren’s astute editor’s eye, and by Dolbier's upon her retirement. Each season would consist of 8 luncheons. That's 3 authors per luncheon, 8 luncheons per year, for 36 years. By our estimation, that means there were approximately 290 events during the luncheon's remarkable run, with nearly 875 separate speeches from almost as many authors, two-thirds of them airing on WNYC.

Our first Book and Author broadcast took place on October 26, 1948, with a program including Robert Sherwood (Roosevelt and Hopkins), Harvey Allen (Toward the Morning), and Billy Rose (Wine, Women, and Words). The most recent extant recording from of Book and Author Luncheon occurred in 1969 and featured Ralph Salerno (The Crime Confederation: Cosa Nostra and Allied Operations in Organized Crime), Peg Bracken (I Didn't Come Here to Argue), and Marshall McLuhan (From Cliché to Archetype). (Our last known Luncheon was broadcast April 29, 1974, featuring Fawn M. Brodie, Peter S. Prescott, and Studs Terkel. It is unfortunately lost to history.)

Within the twenty years that comprise our current collection, listeners would hear from literary heavyweights—Gore Vidal (Julian), Vladimir Nabokov (Pnin), and James Michener (twice, for The Bridge at Andau and The Bridges at Toko-Ri)—authors of some of the century's most influential nonfiction—Rachel Carson (The Sea Around Us), John Kenneth Galbraith (The New Industrial Society), and Jane Jacobs (The Death and Life of Great American Cities)—the brilliant stars of American screen, song, and dance—Sammy Davis Jr. (Yes, I Can), Marian Anderson (My Lord What a Morning), and Gypsy Rose Lee (Gypsy, a Memoir)—newsmakers, statesmen, sportsmen, and intellectuals plying their latest grandest ideas and greatest adventures—Sir Edmund Hillary (The Conquest of Everest), Arthur M. Schlesinger (A Thousand Days), Roy Campanella (It’s Good to Be Alive), and William Shirer (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich)—and the er... less definable, or at least more fun—Cornelia Otis Skinner ("A Subscriber to the Symphony"), Burl Ives (The Burl Ives Songbook), and three-time speaker humorist Leo Rosten.

If none of those strike you, do note that the WNYC Archives has digitized some 80 Book and Author Luncheons, with over 200 author's speeches, and we’re in the process of digging out more from the NYC Municipal Archives, so chances are there is something that might pique your interest in the collection, if you peruse it with patience.

The WNYC Books and Authors collection consists of recordings reformatted from 16” transcription discs and acetate and polyester 1/4" open-reel tape borrowed from the New York City Municipal Archives. A few recordings had been reformatted by the Municipal Archives from the original transcription discs to open-reel tape during an earlier preservation project, which we later digitized during our own.

The recordings in this collection span the first 20 years of WNYC's involvement, 1948 to 1968.

Bibliography:

• Kruger, Richard. The Paper. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986. Print.
• "Book Notes." New York Herald Tribune (1926-1962): 11. Mar 14 1938. ProQuest.Web. 8 July 2016.
• "Other 20 -- no Title." New York Herald Tribune (1926-1962): 40. Oct 26 1948.ProQuest. Web. 8 July 2016 .
• "Radio." New York Times: 29 Apr 1969. Web. 13 July 2016
• "Irita Van Doren, Editor of Books, Herald Tribune Review, Is Dead" New York Times: 37. 19 Dec 1966. Web. 8 July 2016.
• "Maurice Dolbier, 81, Book editor and Writer"  New York Times: 23 Oct 1993. Web. 8 July 201