cover image Merry Gentlemen (and One Lady):

Merry Gentlemen (and One Lady):

J. Bryan. Atheneum Books, $17.95 (324pp) ISBN 978-0-689-11533-2

Bryan, who has been an editor for Town and Country and the Saturday Evening Post, here remembers 13 ""warm, witty, delightful'' men and one bittersweet woman, Dorothy Parker, all of whom had little in common except that Bryan regarded them as wonderful company. ``Bedlam Bob'' Benchley, Fred Allen, Donald Ogden Stewart (``the Commie comic''), punster Corey Ford, Frank Sullivan and S. J. Perelman were renowned for their wit; Hugh Troy was a supreme practical joker; George Bond was ``a rascal, a knave'' and ``a witty, delightful companion.'' John Steinbeck, script-doctor Nunnally Johnson, litterateur Finis Farr, magazine editor Arthur Samuels and playwright Marc Connelly were better known for their professions than for their personalities. The anecdotes are generally entertaining, but one senses it is necessary to have known these people to be able to agree that they were as ``merry'' as Bryan assures us they were. Photos not seen by PW. November