Offering readers an inebriating swig from the great cocktail shaker of the Roaring Twenties--the Jazz Age, the age of Gatsby--Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers, and Swells showcases unforgettable writers in search of how to live well in a changing era.

Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter introduces these fabulous pieces written between 1913 and 1936, when the magazine published a Murderers' Row of the world's leading literary lights, including:

- F. Scott Fitzgerald on what a magazine should be
- Clarence Darrow on equality
- E. E. Cummings on Calvin Coolidge
- D. H. Lawrence on women
- Djuna Barnes on James Joyce
- John Maynard Keynes on the collapse in money value
- Dorothy Parker on a host of topics, from why she hates actresses to why she hasn't married