The original Vanity Fair, superbly edited by the inimitable Frank Crowninshield from 1914 to 1936, was the epitome of elan during the teens and twenties. A unique amalgam of art, literature, humor, fashion, and social commentary, Vanity Fair attracted a loyal audience and became the model of sophisticated success in the publishing industry, even after it was felled by the Depression. Revitalized in the early 1980s, the Vanity Fair of the late twentieth century is a slick, celebrity-driven monthly that has become the last word on American popular culture among the upwardly mobile. Amidst the celebrity mania of the late twentieth century, Vanity Fair is the bible of the stars.

Vanity Fair's emergence during the teens, as a "smart magazine" aimed at an urban leisure class, was the direct result of a number of changes in America in general and in the publishing business in specific. Following...