Offering readers an inebriating swig from the great cocktail shaker of the Roaring Twenties—the Jazz Age, the age of Gatsby—Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers, and Swells showcases unforgettable writers in search of how to live well in a changing era. Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter introduces these fabulous pieces written between 1913 and 1936, when the magazine published a Murderers' Row of the world's leading literary lights, including:
- F. Scott Fitzgerald on what a magazine should be
- Clarence Darrow on equality
- e. e. cummings on Calvin Coolidge
- D. H. Lawrence on women
- Djuna Barnes on James Joyce
- John Maynard Keynes on the collapse in money value
- Dorothy Parker on a host of topics, from why she hates actresses to why she hasn't married
