Women, celebrity, and literary culture between the wars

"How to tell the difference between a Matisse painting and a Spanish omelette" : Dorothy Parker, Vogue, and Vanity fair

"Brains are really everything" : Anita Loos's Gentlemen prefer blondes

"A plumber's idea of Cleopatra" : Mae West as author

"Astronomers located her in the latitude of Prince Edward Island" : L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, and early Hollywood

"The best product of this century" : Margaret Kennedy's The constant nymph

"Literature or just sheer flapdoodle?": Stella Gibbons's Cold Comfort Farm

"Wildest hopes exceeded" : E. M. Delafield's Diary of a provincial lady.