There was a time when it seemed that all things bright, clever, or malicious spoken in New York were ascribed to Dorothy Parker. That time was the 1920s, when wit was as plentiful as bathtub gin and, when dispensed by her, just as lethal. "You know," she was remembered as saying among friends about an accomplished contemporary with amorous proclivities, "that woman speaks 18 languages? And she can't say 'No' in any of them." When conversation turned to an actress who had fallen and broken a leg in London, Dorothy Parker became distraught: "Oh, how terrible! She must have done it sliding down a barrister." She could mock herself as well. "One more drink," goes her famous party line, "and I'd be under the host." Even in later years she could be heard delivering memorably witty lines with undiminished spontaneity. "I had an office so tiny," she recalled in...