In exclusive Dorothy Parker Society news, Penguin Classics will be bringing out a new Parker book in May 2008. It is The Ladies of the Corridor, a play she wrote in 1953 in collaboration with Arnaud D’Usseau. The book has not been available in more than 50 years, and Penguin Classics is bringing it out in a new edition. It has an introduction written by Parker biographer Marion Meade.
For those not familiar with the play, it contains some of Parker’s most trenchant observations and wicked dialogue. Set in a residential hotel in Manhattan’s East Sixties, the main characters are widows and divorcee’s who wile away their days and nights in a monotonous grind. The play did not do well on Broadway, running for just 45 performances in the fall of 1953 at the Longacre Theatre. However, Parker considered it among her best work and was extremely proud of it. Audiences in the 21st Century saw Ladies off-Broadway in 2003 and 2005, in a marvelous production mounted by the Peccadillo Theater Company. The New Yorker wrote that The Ladies of the Corridor, “proves that Parker was the mistress of much more than the acid one-liner.” We will have more information about this classic book when the publication date draws closer.
Parker is also among the writers in the latest compilation from the New Yorker archives, Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink. The hardcover, 600-page book came out last month from Random House. Parker joins literary gastronomes Roald Dahl, Calvin Trillin, Bill Buford, Susan Orlean, Jane Kramer, and Anthony Bourdain. The book is on this page.