After sixteen years of working a thankless job at Life magazine, Walter Mitty is assigned to travel the world to track down the quintessential cover image from their star photographer for the magazine's final issue.

"From its birth in 1925 to the early days of the Cold War, The New Yorker slowly but surely took hold as the country's most prestigious, entertaining, and informative general-interest periodical. In [this book], Thomas Vinciguerra paints a portrait of the magazine's cadre of charming, wisecracking, driven, troubled, brilliant writers and editors"--Dust jacket flap.