Books and Literature For The Decade

Three important groups during this period were: The Algonquin Round Table, also called THE ROUND TABLE. They were an  informal group of American literary men and women, and during the 1920s and '30s they met daily for lunch on weekdays at a large round table in the Algonquin Hotel in New York City . Many of the best-known writers, journalists, and artists in New York City were in this group. Among them:  Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott (author of the quote "All the things I really like are immoral, illegal, or fattening", Heywood Broun, Robert Benchley,Robert Sherwood, George S. Kaufman, Franklin P. Adams, Marc Connelly, Harold Ross, Harpo Marx, and Russell Crouse. 

The first important movement of black artists and writers in the US was the Harlem Renaissance. Centered in Harlem, NY, and other urban areas during the 1920s, black writers published more than ever before. Black authors, artists, and musicians received their first serious critical appraisal. Among this group: Zora Neale Hurston, W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, and Alain Locke , who was considered the chief interpreter for the Harlem movement.

The Lost Generation, consisted of self-exiled expatriates who lived and wrote in Paris between the wars. Looking for freedom of thought and action, these writers changed the face of modern writing. Realistic and rebellious, they wrote what they wanted and fought censorship for profanity and sexuality. Incorporated in their writing were Freudian ideas into their characters and styles. Among this group: Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, John Dos Passos, Henry Miller, F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Other who were of importance during this decade include E. E. Cummings who experimented with language (and punctuation!).  An important part of the Southern Renaissance was William Faulkner, and Edna St. Vincent Millay expressed the defiance and desires of her generation from Greenwich Village.  Eugene O'Neill drew attention to a serious American stage. Also it was the beginning of the Golden Age of Mysteries - with such American writers as Raymond Chandler and Dashielle Hammett paving the way for many many years to come.