Horsie: Dorothy Parker (Penguin Archive)

90 Classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books

What can you say, when a man asks you to dance with him? I most certainly will not dance with you. I’ll see you in hell first. Why, thank you, I’d like to awfully, but I’m having labor pains.

Acerbic, pithy and vibrant, Dorothy Parker’s writings capture the dizzying decadence of Jazz Age New York. Parker, however, refuses to be swept along: she gleefully deconstructs its hypocrisy, prejudice and taboos with style and precision.